communiquéWomen’s Community House

I N T H I S I S S U E

Grand House Party 10th Anniversary Epic

Walk A Mile in Her Shoes

Mine101 Turns One!

Community Corner

From the Executive Director

Annual General Meeting

Grand House Party

10th Anniversary EpicOur biggest and best show yet! Thursday, June 14, 2012

N E W S L E T T E R I s s u e 1 - 1 2

This year, rather than focus on a particularmusic genre, we decided to celebrate the milestone of Grand House Party’s 10thanniversary in epic fashion!

Everything about this year’s Grand HouseParty 10 promises to be great – from the set design, to the orchestra, to the tenvocalists, to the list of 20 epic songs fromthe last three decades, including some veryspecial surprises.

GHP 10 will be a two-hour rock, pop, soulextravaganza that, for starters, will featureEPIC hits from:• the sophisticated, smooth, soaring,

soulful sounds of Chicago• the iconic Michael Jackson• and that great Canadian rock

institution Lighthouseplus ...Queen, Stevie Wonder, ArethaFranklin, Fleetwood Mac and more.

So plan to join us for this Epic celebration...Tickets: $45 on sale April 15, 2012 onlineat www.grandhouseparty.ca or at theGrand Theatre box office (519) 672-8800.

To learn about sponsorship opportunities,contact Pamela Coray, DevelopmentManager at (519) 642-3003 ext 2252.

are you man enough?

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes®

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Good News Afoot! Women’s Community House welcomes TenderTootsies as title sponsor of the London Walk a Mile inHer Shoes® event.

Join the hundreds of London and area men who eachyear collect pledges for the opportunity to prove theyare man enough to walk one mile – once aroundVictoria Park in downtown London – in red high heels!

This year’s goal is to raise $45,000!

It’s simple! Register online at www.walkamilelondon.com andreserve your red high heels. We can fit up to a size17! You can download a pledge form and sponsorscan donate online. Walk alone or organize a team!

Refreshments and door prizes follow the walk atCentennial Hall!

Registration opens July 27, 2012!

Register early and be the team to beat on the Walkwebsite scoreboard!

Mine101 turns One!Wow! It is hard to believe that it has been a year sinceMine101 first opened their doors to the public. Tocelebrate, an open house was held on the evening ofThursday, March 29th which included a fashion showwith staff and volunteer models from the shelters,delicious food, a 1-year birthday cake and, of course,shopping! We have gained  many loyal customers thispast year and continue to enjoy meeting new customersevery day. Receiving a large quantity of wonderfuldonations makes it easy for us to ensure that there isalways a great selection of items that hit the racks.

Mine101 is Women’s Community House’s socialenterprise, a different kind of second-hand clothing storefeaturing great clothes at great prices in a greatatmosphere. Mine101 also lets you do good while youlook good. Proceeds from our sales go to supportprograms for children and women through Women’sCommunity House!

If you haven’t explored Mine101’s awesome deals yet,please come visit us soon. We are located at 900 OxfordStreet East in Bellwood Plaza across from theSuperstore.

We look forward to serving Londoners in new andcreative ways in the coming years!

2012 Walk Steering Committee is Matt Brown, Johanna Drennan, Cathy Everett, CharleneJones, Henry Pateman, Dawn Simons, Allyson Taylor, Peter Testa and Jim Yeomans.

Women’s Community Housecelebrates completion ofrenovationsWomen’s Community House (WCH) celebratedthe completion of renovations at its Second StageHousing with an open house event on January13, 2012. Among the over 80 guests were EdHolder, MP London West, representatives of the

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation(CMHC) and Mayor Joe Fontana.  WCH staff  andvolunteers were on hand to give tours and showoff the beautiful renovations.

The federal government, through CMHC,provided $127,500 to the project through theShelter Enhancement Program (SEP) whichfunded the replacement of all exterior windowsand some of the hallway flooring. The Ministry ofCommunity and Social Services provided fundingfor elevator upgrades and replacement of allcupboards in the units and community areas.

“Through this support, we are not only helpingrepair housing, we are helping repair people’slives, to give them hope and give them dignity,”Holder said. “With the completion of theserenovations, residents can confidently call theirhouse their home.”

“Today is an exciting day for Women’sCommunity House,” said Shelley Yeo, Director ofTransitional Housing and Community SupportPrograms. “Thanks to the support of CMHC and the provincial andmunicipal governmentpartners, we wereable to completemuch needed renova-tions at our SecondStage Housing, whichprovides housing forwomen and theirchildren who arefacing challengingsituations. It’s important for them to have a safe,well-maintained place to call home.”

Excerpts taken from London Community News articleSaturday January 21, 2012

Giving Begins at a Young Ageby Michelle Mols

Our daughter’s birthday is fairly close to Christmas

so to minimize the amount of gifts she would

receive for her second birthday we decided to

think outside of the box which led us to the

concept of sharing with children who may be in

need of a new toy to lift their spirits. Sometimes at

birthdays the main focus is gifts, especially for

children, and we thought this would be a good age

to shift the focus away from gifts, gifts, gifts and

move it towards giving. And since we were still

putting away the many Christmas toys, we felt that

having more new toys come into the house with

the birthday party would be a little overwhelming. I

thought donating to a shelter would be a good

idea so I did some Internet research to find shelters

that were local to me. In my search, I came across

the Women’s Community House website.

Available on the site was a full list of needed items,

specific to each month, which was so helpful. This

enabled me to put a short list of items that I knew

people were in need of on each of the birthday

party invitations that I sent out.

We had a good turnout for the party and I was

pleasantly surprised as family and friends put

together some beautiful donation baskets,

including pajamas, socks, underwear, kitchen

utensils, dish detergent, combs and many other

needed items. I found people were really open

to the idea.

We had a great time celebrating our daughter’s

birthday without the focus on opening gifts. And

the most amazing part was that my two-year-old

daughter did not notice one little bit. We made

arrangements with Women’s Community House in

the week following the birthday party to deliver the

donations.

We have now decided that every other year for

my daughter’s birthday we will choose a different

cause and donate to it, such as toys and books

for the Children’s Hospital or pet supplies for the

Humane Society. This way she will grow up

appreciating the joy of giving and helping those

in need.

Manoeuvring the Family Court SystemIn the fall of 2011, Women’s Community House

was awarded a grant from the Ministry of the

Attorney General to implement the Family Court

Support Worker Program (FCSP) for London and

Middlesex. Our partnering agencies include

London Abused Women’s Centre, Victim

Services of Middlesex, Across Languages,

Merrymount Family Support and Crisis Centre

and Carrefour des Femmes du Sud-Ouest de

l’Ontario. The program offers direct support to

female and male victims of domestic violence

going through the Family Court System by:

providing information about the family law

procedures and processes; assisting with

recording abuse for court documentation;

accompaniment to the Family Law Information

Centre and court proceedings; aid in accessing

legal help; and discussing court outcomes,

lawyers appointments, and consultations with

duty counsel. The FCSP is currently in all 44

jurisdictions in Ontario and, judging from the first

few months, it is a much-needed resource.

Creatively CelebratingInternational Women’s Dayby Celine Maiolino, Women’s Community House Placement Student

Each year, we mark International Women’s Day

in many ways to celebrate the women in our

lives. This year, we embraced this day at

Women’s Community House with women,

children, staff, volunteers and students working

together to create posters that focused on

positive themes and ideas of hope. The creative

artwork was gathered up and placed throughout

London at venues such as the Courthouse, the

Market, Dundas Street East and the London

Public Library, as well as several malls in the

area. Each poster indicated that it was created

by a woman or a child currently in shelter.

Throughout this collective process, everyone

felt connected and inspired by the more

global meaning to this project. Thank you to all

of the wonderful

women in our lives.

COMMUNITY CORNERWomen's Community House continues to celebrate al l that our community does to support

us in various ways throughout the year and through al l the seasons.

communiqué

Kate Wiggins, Shelley Yeo and Ed Holder

Shelley Yeo givinga tour of SSH

Women’s

Community

House

Providing safe places

and services for

abused women and

their children

101 Wellington Road

London, Ontario

N6C 4M7

Ph: 519 . 642 . 3003

Fax: 519 . 642 . 3002

TTY: 519.963.0427

www.shelterlondon.org

WCH video on website a look inside the shelter

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Research us atwww.cra.gc.ca/donors

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Greetings from all of us here atWomen’s Community House!Life has been, and continues to be, busy andexciting! Not only did Shelley Yeo, Director ofTransitional and Community Services atWomen’s Community House (WCH), and I havethe opportunity to attend the 2nd WorldConference of Women’s Shelters held February27th - March 1st in Washington, DC, but we both(along with our colleagues) were fortunateenough to be selected to present at thisconference where there were 1,468 delegatesfrom 84 countries in attendance! My teampresented on the “High Risk Safety Project”relating to holding high-risk men moreaccountable. Shelley presented with 2 differentteams. One group presented I Step Forward to End Violence and Abuse and Make It OurBusiness, two workplace training initiativesshifting workplace cultures and trainingchampions to end abuse in communities,workplaces and homes. The second group she presented with was about the Woman AbuseScreening Project, how 130 women abuse,sexual assault, mental health and addictionagencies in 11 regions are collaborating withwomen with lived experience in these areas to increase capacity and reduce barriers forwomen accessing shelters.

And there’s additional exciting news…We celebrated our social enterprise Mine101’sfirst birthday on Thursday, March 29th. Wow!How very proud we are of this beautiful store andthe women who run it! I hope that you all have

had, or will take, the opportunity to visit our store.

It is my honour to introduce you to our new FamilyCourt Support Worker team. Rita Galea, who hasworked for WCH for many years, was hired as ourFamily Court Support Worker in December of2011 and is assisted by her super supportperson, Suzie. This duo is already making adifference helping victims of domestic violencethrough the family court process. Go Team!

A great new partnership for WCH has beenestablished. Soup Sisters, a non-profit charitablesocial enterprise dedicated to providing comfortto women, children and youth through themaking, sharing and donating of soup founded in2009 by Calgarian Sharon Hapton, will be makingover 200 servings of fresh homemade soup from the heart for the families at WCH. SoupSisters’ “warming hearts…one bowl at a time”launch was held on March 26th at the LondonTraining Center. For more information about thisgreat group and to find out how you can getinvolved with them, check out their website at http://soupsisters.org.

In closing, I wanted to mention that we haverecently completed our 2012/13 budget processand it appears that we have a challenging yearahead of us. We extend our most sincereappreciation to all of our solid donors whosupport women and their children on their pathfrom abuse to safety and freedom of choice.

Peace,Kate WigginsExecutive Director

From the Executive Director

S A V E T H E D A T E

2012 Women’s Community House

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGMonday, September 24, 2012

London Music Club

6 p.m.

Guest speaker: TBA

Watch the WCH website

www.shelterlondon.org for further details.

The 2011 Women’s Community House AnnualGeneral Meeting was held at the London MusicClub on September 26th. Special guest speakerAllison Dunn shared about her experiences in Indiaregarding literacy and women’s issues.