The Opposite of Poverty is Community
Written by Jaya James, Executive Director of Lakeside HOPE House. Published on November 13, 2019.
I went through this exercise of thinking about my purpose, what am I created for and what am I here for. For me, I believe that everything I do should create communities where people belong, whether it's through my family, my work, my volunteer, my other areas of life.
With supporting refugee families settle in Guelph, my role was to work with the volunteers. We had 58 families come during the time I was working on the program. What was inspiring, and there's no other way of describing it, was that within a short period of time, we had 800 people in Guelph sign up to help. To see a city so quickly come together and support others just blew me away. We had database guys come in to help us keep track of everybody and to log information. We had other people help us load the data and show us how to sort it and organize it. I had a couple who took major responsibilities for managing one of our warehouses and keeping the inventory system straight.
Everything came together and that gets me really excited. There still are groups that are meeting together to have dinners with some of the families, It wasn’t just a temporary thing. Some relationships have really cemented and are permanent. For both groups, they belong to each other and that to me is amazing.
For HOPE House, we are really striving to create a community where everyone feels like they belong. We believe the opposite of poverty is community, and within the community, there are resources for people to thrive. We are trying to create a space where people know they can come just the way they are, where they are going to be encouraged and sometimes even challenged by the community to grow into who they want to be.
HOPE House is a poverty relief agency in Guelph that is leveraging the power of community to overcome poverty. We offer many of the traditional services that people think of in poverty relief, we have a food market, a meals program, a clothing market, but we really are trying to create a space where people are able to not only get their daily needs met, but are also given opportunities to grow and change their future, and it is very much driven by the individual.
The five creators from HOPE House who were part of the Community Box are all examples of individuals who stepped forward and really took leadership.
It was really cool to watch the video and hear Sarah speaking, and to see Martha, Marlene, Paul, and Ame shine.
We are very proud as friends and as fellow community members to see these individuals gifts really shine, and to see the confidence that has come from that.
We want to take a moment and recognize Lakeside HOPE House for being the first social services organization to partner with The Community Company!
We caught up with Jaya, the Executive Director of HOPE House, to learn a little more about her journey into community development. You can click the button below to check out the Community Box we made in partnership with HOPE House.