The Hamilton Dream Center Center
Empowering Families & Individuals to Succeed with Dignity and Purpose
Giving Tuesday.... YOU HELPED AMAZINGLY!
$1510.00 was donated on Tuesday through our
Giving Tuesday Campaign.
You can still click on the Donate button above and help us reach our goal of $5,000.00 that will go towards our
YOUR DONATION DOES MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!
Ace & Joy Clarke
Ace and Joy founded The Hamilton Dream Center food bank in Hamilton, Ontario because they wanted to give back. After having lived the lifestyle of outlaw motorcycle gang members they knew that they needed to become people who offered HOPE to a broken community.
Their passion for picking people up and setting them on a life changing path is evident each and every day as they help feed and clothe countless families each year.
A few amazing things happened at the Dream Center this year.
Things beyond the food pantry.
2436 Client visits!
We expanded our boundaries to serve people with jobs but still living in poverty as well as old age pension, students, and people on CPP. Since doing that we have had a significant increase in those clients specifically those receiving pension. We've had 4 new wonderful volunteers, bringing our total to 10 regular day time volunteers. We have been able to hire 2 new staff in part time positions with the anticipation of growth.
We kept our salary expenses under 2% of all revenue generated.
For every $1 donated in 2017, we turned it into $2.83 worth of food and clothing given out through the Blue Door Food Pantry. This number does not include the 813 toys given out or the Christmas Hampers that all those children's families received with full turkey dinners (thank you to Calvary Church and the other many donors)
Over 80 income tax returns were filed by Chartered accountants for individuals and families living below the poverty level.
With the help of Blessings Church we planted a community garden and harvested vegetables for the pantry right in our own parking lot.
We became a partner with Woodview Learning Centre to provide volunteer opportunities for teens with physical and developmental disabilities.
We became home to 4 Hamilton run, owned and operated grass roots businesses within our building. Providing the small businesses opportunities to bring jobs to our community.
The Dream Center is more than "just a food bank" although it's what people have come to know us as. We are so much more to so many. We will continue to improve the quality of life for those that service food banks while they need them. This year we have set a goal to provide milk to those accessing our food pantry.
We are expanding our service area once again to an additional 20 appointments per week for residents on other forms of assistance.
We have a great year of growth ahead planned.
Rebekah Hill
Executive Director