CommUNITY204
I grew up as a permanent ward with child and family services my whole life. I was in and out of group homes, foster homes, and emergency placements. When you're a minority and a teenager, it's very hard for you to find somewhere where you belong. I always had that longing to belong and to get that positive recognition. But I didn't have the parents to give that to me, so I was very susceptible to heading down the wrong path. That would have been a very easy option for me. I ended up seeking employment in a similar area that provided those qualities I longed for. I work as an action therapist and do hands-on community therapy with kids in care with a focus on the BIPOC community. Unfortunately, statistically, that's the highest amount of people in care. I have a son that's indigenous and I'm a foster parent to 2 boys as well. Community204 supports the community in its entirety regardless of circumstances. Our slogan is helping is healing, helping his medicine. We believe in human justice and social justice and human advocacy. We took part in the gathering for justice for Eisha Hudson, a 16-year-old indigenous girl that was shot and killed by WPS. A lot of our youth are 16, indigenous or visible minority, and are also susceptible to police brutality simple due to their appearance as well as life’s social and economic circumstances. We just want to get out there and partake in amazing things; whether it's providing food and clothing to people without shelter, peaceful protests, search parties, residency relocation, furniture drop-offs to those in need, or if you're a domestic violence victim, or getting back on your feet after overcoming a struggle and you're relocating, we make sure you're safely able to vacate and relocate as well. We just want to help.
Our first motto or focus is on lateral empathy. Last year, we were asked to be peacemakers for a Black Lives Matter protest at The Forks. When we did that event, we realized that we had nothing that allowed us to stand out to other people. How could they tell who we were? We would always collaborate with other groups, but we didn't have an identifiable name or clothing. We sat there and brainstormed because we wanted to figure out who we were. And if you look at us, we're all different colors, sizes, and ages. It's the perfect depiction of what Winnipeg is, a melting pot of different people, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences, so we are the community. But who do we help? We help domestic violence victims, we help people in need, we help those without shelter, we help the elderly, those we are overcoming challenges like addictions or systems navigation; so we help the community. What is our emphasis? Our emphasis is just working together. When you're working together, that's unity. And then where are we from? 204. That's how we came up with our name. We have a lot of Indigenous core members and we help on treaty 1 land, so we wanted to incorporate the positive aspects of that culture. Our logo is the medicine wheel, it incorporates all of the teachings that come with it. The four directions which represent that area of those we help, the 4 areas of personal wellness (Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual), and the colors also represent the four nations. And then we utilize the heart because everything that we do is heart work; we walk with our hearts and put that into our efforts.
When Covid hit, everything shut down and supports were no longer as readily available. The severe effects of marginalization were compounded due to the extreme isolation and restrictions put in place. Suffering, marginalization, oppression, addictions, those things don’t adhere to the pandemic, they don’t stop without supports. Thunderbird house area became overwhelmed with litter and unsafe paraphernalia. We started cleaning it all up and when people saw us cleaning, they asked if we had food and clothing. From there, that's when we came up with Soup for the Soul Sundays. I reached out to my friend who I used to work with named Char. She and her partner are the owners of Meal Set Go and Meal Set Bistro. She loved what we were doing and asked how she can get involved. She provided us with soup, and we were able to use her restaurant. At first, there were only 5-6 people and within minutes, there were 200. In an hour, everything was gone. The people were just so grateful, gracious, humble, and kind. It was just opening up our hearts. Char came out and helped too, she went from working in the restaurant all day to showing up in the cold and helping out. After that, we started implementing some of the people's requests. We noticed a lot of people didn't have gloves or clothing. That's when we put out a community call for donations for clothing and have received so many other additional donations from our community. Everything we are doing is out of our hearts and done collectively through the supports of one another. There is no guaranteed, consistent funding or financial fall back.
Soup for the Soul is set up on 180 Henry across the Salvation Army building. We have food, accessories, clothing, and hygiene packages. We have a harm reduction team, a litter team, and an awareness team that goes around and to tell people that we're serving soup. People share their stories and experiences with us, and it's just been amazing. Through this process, we created a social media page. It's not to brag and boast, but it's to create a sense of awareness. It's not about who we're helping, it's about how we're helping. We started with the core youth that I work with and now we've grown to about 30 people out there. And some of them I didn’t know prior to this community volunteering. The desire to help brought us all together and formed those connections organically. I have a couple of teenage boys that are susceptible to negative influences. Whether that's using or providing drugs, gang involvement, violence, or lack of opportunity. But they show up every Sunday, just as a means of staying out of trouble and to give back. We've also been able to collaborate with other groups like OPK, Anishiative, Thunderbirds, Mama Bear clan, and we join them too. That, ties into our second motto, which is lateral unity. There is no ego in what we do. We're not here to say we help better than you, we do more than you. We're all here for the same mission; to help because we can, to help because its right and to love our fellow person. The last thing that we believe in is lateral love. Everything we're doing is out of our hearts. We have no funding. Everything that we have and provide has either been given to us out of the goodness of someone else's heart or out of the goodness of our own heart. It's just unbelievable how great our city has been. No one ever feels pressured to be there. You just have the most rewarding feeling and it's not even about what you did, it's about what you were a part of. It's about working with wonderful people, hearing wonderful stories, and seeing the gratitude of being a part of something and belonging to something. It shifts your focus from ego to just unconditional love and helping. There's no underlying reason to it. We do it because it's the right thing to do. Our city is a beautiful city when you get past all the negative stuff.
We won the CBC Manitoba future 40 for 2020. We were at the top amongst the social activism, community, and volunteer category. That just speaks to the value of what we're doing, and it speaks to the efforts and the energies that the youth put forward. I'm new to all of this, this has just been a learning process for me. My goal was just to get out there and help because it's the right thing to do and because I had the capability. I didn't plan on growing this big. I'm navigating and learning as I go by each day. Because as much as I started this, I am absolutely nothing without them. They're an extension of my beliefs, they are the core and heartbeat of what we do. They are all amazing, they can be doing so many other things, but they make the conscious choice and decision to be out there helping people. Even if they're not in the best situations themselves quite yet. They're still trying to find their way in this life and their path. I truly have a place in my heart for every single one of them. I just couldn't be prouder of what they're doing, who they are, and who they're becoming. In the future I envision use getting a building or a space and continuing to unite with other groups and from there perhaps we could be able to provide employment and volunteer positions to people in the future.
