N.D.G. group helps families break cycle of poverty
Laughter filled the house as several Montreal comedians took to the stage at Club Soda, but the more than 400 people who turned out to the St-Laurent Blvd. venue on a late September evening had more than entertainment on their minds.
They were there to support On Our Own, a community group in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce working to help young parents — single mothers mostly — and their kids to thrive. Most come from backgrounds of poverty, trauma or both.
On Our Own, or O3, is about breaking that cycle. “The focus is on turning their lives around,” said O3 director Ushana Houston. “We don’t know what leads someone to have a baby at a young age, but the point is that they want the best for their children. We are here to give them the skills they need that they might not have gotten growing up.”
Candidates for O3 are between the ages of 16 to 30 with at least one child under age five. Some of the young mothers grew up in foster care, without a sense of family; some came to the organization from shelters for victims of domestic violence and some from Elizabeth House, which helps young mothers and mothers-to-be who are having difficulty adjusting to pregnancy or being parents.
The seventh edition of Joey Elias and the Comedy All-Stars: An Evening of Hilarity in Support of On Our Own raised $90,134 — the donation constitutes the single largest non-governmental infusion of funds O3 receives for the year — and brought to more than $385,000 the total raised over the years. The organization, which gets funding from all three levels of government, has an overall budget of $430,000 and a staff of five, three full-time.
Costs associated with the Sept. 26 event were, as in years past, underwritten by the Media Experts media agency. The five comedians — host Lawrence Corber, Elias, Wassim El-Mounzer, Pantelis and Sara Quinn — donated their time and talent so that net proceeds went directly to On Our Own.
“We believe that it is our obligation to do whatever we can, as individuals and as a powerful collective, to assist those around us—to do what we can to repair the world,” said Media Experts founder and CEO Mark Sherman.
O3, established in 2005, offers transitional housing for a period of up to five years. It owns four buildings on the Benny Farm site on Cavendish Blvd. south of Sherbrooke St. — a total of 29 two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments, two to a floor. All are currently occupied.
Rents are subsidized by the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal and residents pay a maximum of 25 per cent of their income — between $260 and $350 per month for most. Some residents receive social assistance or student loans; some have part-time jobs.
O3’s core is its programming. Parents are supported, with everything from workshops on subjects including parenting, budgeting and thriving in school and career to one-on-one support.
The first two years are workshop intensive, Houston explained; after that them others work at accessing services in the community: signing their children up for activities at the local athletic centre, say, taking them to the Benny Library and mentoring other young mothers. The goal is to build resourcefulness and confidence.
One major initiative at O3 this year is education — for the children and for their parents. “We are trying to encourage people to be in school,” Houston said. “The path to breaking the cycle of poverty is that you are educated and employable.” Three of the O3 mothers are at university and others are in CEGEP or high school.
Another initiative is encouraging the involvement of fathers. Initially O3 accepted only mothers, but now it is open to couples.
To learn more or to make a donation, go to o3onourown.com.