On April 27, the United Way of Northern British Columbia (UWNBC) dispersed the first round of allotted funds from the UWNBC COVID-19 Relief Fund to 25 non-profit organizations in the region.
According to a news release from the UWNBC, just over $128,000 was released from the relief fund to the selected organizations, and all of the allocations were directly related to the response to COVID-19 relief.
The contributions from the the relief fund were made to agencies and charities across the region in order to support communities’ most vulnerable people with food supplies, transportation and delivery, personal care and hygiene items, as well as supports for programs to run while considering physical distancing requirements and resources supporting the need for isolation.
“We are so honoured and grateful to be able to serve the agencies and communities of northern B.C. through the amazing generosity of so many donors,” Trista Spencer, executive director of UWNBC, said in the release. “The response to the UWNBC COVID-19 Relief Fund has been remarkable. As this first round of allocations shows, it will provide much-needed support to those that, day in and day out, give so much of themselves to provide for our most vulnerable. Our team continues to work to connect resources with the needs across our region, but we truly need to take a moment to celebrate how people and organizations have come together to support each other at this precarious time.”
In Quesnel, the Quesnel Women’s Resource Centre (QWRC) and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Quesnel (BBBSQ) organizations each received funds from the UWNBC COVID-19 Relief Fund.
The Quesnel Women’s Resource Centre (QWRC) received $2,000 from UWNBC COVID-19 Relief Fund which QWRC administrative co-ordinator Ravneet Sran says will go directly towards the immediate needs of their clients due to the global pandemic.
“This funding will be used to enhance our services for youth, seniors, women and their children in crises to fulfill their immediate needs like food, safety, medication, or emergency shelter and transportation,” said Sran. “The biggest problem our clients are facing right now is safe and affordable housing because a large number of housing in our community is provided through secondary suites — landlords are reluctant to rent out their apartments due to fear of exposure to COVID-19. The only option would be to provide monthly housing in the local motels which can be costly for women with a limited income. We are assessing situations and providing the essential services to our clients as needed.”
Sran says that since the COVID-19 pandemic started, and self-isolation and social distancing practices were put into place the QWRC has seen a greater demand from their clients particularly with regards to gender based violence towards women.
“As most of the people got laid off from their work or lost their jobs due to COVID-19, the women are being continuously observed by their abusive partners at home. It is leading to rise in number of women experiencing abuse and domestic violence especially where situations were already tense and unsafe before pandemic. So, gender-based violence has increased during this pandemic.” said Sran.
Currently, the QWRC is closed for drop-is clients due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, QWRC’s two counsellors and an outreach worker are still able to assist their clients remotely via phone or video conferencing and will meet the clients in-person on emergency basis only.
BBBSQ received $1,500 from the relief fund and will be using the money to create a healthy eating and meal preparation program for 15 children and their families who are enrolled in their programming.
“We have 15 children in our case load, so we are going to be buying $100 worth of food items for each of our kids so they can learn how to do some healthy cooking at home,” said BBBSQ executive director Lorene Pulles. “We are going to do up little kits with instructions on how to make healthy salads or how to make shish kabobs or different things like that and then have our kids do that with their families and then send us pictures of what they’ve created.”
Pulles says the idea for the initiative came from components of the organizations Go Girls! Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds! in-school program, which they are currently unable to run due to schools being closed and students staying home due to COVID-19.
“Basically, it’s giving them an activity but also teaching them how to take care of themselves, you know, healthy bodies, healthy minds while they are at home,” she said.
Along with the BBBSQ in-school programming, their mentoring program has had to adapt during the pandemic as well. Now, rather then meeting in person, big brothers and big sisters and their little brothers and little sisters, or “Bigs” and “Littles” as Pulles calls them, are having to communicate remotely.
“Our Bigs and Littles are staying in touch through WhatsApp and FaceTime and phoning each other and doing those types of things,” said Pulles. “They have that support, so if they’re a little too stressed out, they can call their Bigs and talk about what’s going on and the Bigs can suggest maybe some fun activities that they can do until they can meet up.”
Looking to the future, Pulles says BBBSQ is working on creating more programming that is designed to be run remotely to ensure the organization is prepared should social distancing practices be extended and students required to stay home from school.
“We are talking about what happens if school doesn’t go back in September and what’s going to happen over the summer, those types of things,” said Pulles. “We are looking at more virtual programming where we might set up group programs or one-on-one programs over the computer, and just getting involved and having those conversations about peers or their friends or their worries or stresses, the types of things that we would normally talk about when we do other in-school programs.”
While the UWNBC was able to disburse $128,000 during this the first round of allocations of their COVID-19 Relief Fund, the April 27 release states the organization must stay focused on continuing to grow and change throng the COVID-19 crisis, as the total amount of requests they have received for funding to date exceeds the amount of available funding in their COVID-19 Relief Fund by almost eight times.
For this reason, the UWNBC is continuing its fundraising and outreach work to bring as much aid to communities in the region as it can at this time.
Anyone interested in donating to or learning more about the UWNBC COVID-19 Relief Fund can visit unitedwaynbc.ca.
editor@quesnelobserver.com
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