Women in Need Society partners with The Mustard Seed to provide services
Calgary’s underprivileged women and their families will continue to receive support from Women in Need Society (WINS), as the agency partners with The Mustard Seed to help make ends meet.
WINS announced at the end of March it would be closing the doors of the family resource centres and needed to raise $500,000 by the end of April to continue with operations. The provincial government gave WINS a grant of $250,000 but, as April came to a close, the organization had only raised $335,000.
“At that time, I reached out to our partners … to talk about other agencies that might want to come together to find a better way to serve that would be a little more cost efficient for all of us,” said Karen Ramchuk, executive director of WINS.
Boris Lesar, the director of clinical operations at The Mustard Seed, said aligning his organization’s goals with other agencies, such as WINS, will be better for Calgary’s vulnerable population.
“This is not only a great example of collaboration in Calgary but an example of how, when we pool our resources together, we can do so much more,” Lesar said.
Both organizations focus on helping people in need. WINS began as an agency to help women and their families by providing women with the resources and knowledge required to achieve self-sufficiency. The Mustard Seed’s support is aimed toward adults in need of basic resources and assistance achieving a sustainable life change. The partnership will allow both organizations to offer help from shared resource centres.
The two groups will be able to create a new model for running the family resource centres. Ramchuk hopes the new system will inspire more inter-agency co-operation. The Mustard Seed will also share its employment network with WINS, which will continue to assist women in finding and applying for jobs.
“This means that we will be able to support, maybe not to the full extent that we were in the past but as close as we can, to support women in the same way we were. And we will continue to look for partnerships and new ways to be able to keep the collaboration going,” said Ramchuk.
WINS still operates five family thrift stores in the city where gently-used clothing, furniture and household items can be donated and purchased, which helps fund other resources. The organization has helped between 6,000 and 7,000 women each year through its programs and community groups, according to Ramchuk.
However, due to its financial situation, the agency laid off 10 per cent of its staff this year, which has reduced the amount of programs and groups offered to the women.
“I’m hoping that we can find more innovative ways to come together to help reduce costs across the non-profit sector to be able to help more people than we’ve been able to in the past,” said Ramchuk.