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$110,500 granted to front-line agencies providing mental health supports during COVID-19 pandemic
May 22, 2020
On Wednesday the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough and United Way Peterborough and District brought together ten front-line agencies providing mental health supports to our community’s most vulnerable residents to allocate the latest donations to the COVID-19 Community Response Fund.
“The need is so great among charities serving vulnerable folks in the community in terms of mental health, addictions and gender-based violence,” said Jim Russell, CEO of United Way. “We’re happy to partner with the Community Foundation in shepherding this process.”
Funds have been donated to the COVID-19 Community Response Fund by individuals and organizations from across the region. The Fund also received a $12,000 boost from PTBOStrong through their recent covAID event.
The ten participating charities described how they are supporting the mental-well being of vulnerable individuals through the pandemic, and explained where additional resources are needed. As we enter the third month of the Provincial state of emergency, all agencies have switched the majority of services to online or telephone and have had to purchase cell phones, tablets, and laptops, to ensure employees can serve clients safely but remotely. For services still delivered in-person, there have been significant cost increases to keep clients and workers safe including the purchase of personal protective equipment.
All ten charities anticipate that demand for mental health supports will increase significantly when the state of emergency has ended and physical distancing measures are relaxed.
Agencies want to be prepared to meet this demand.
“Bringing service providers together proved once again to be very worthwhile in terms sharing of updates and experiences from the front lines of the pandemic,” said Jennifer DeBues, Director of Operations and Granting at the Community Foundation. “The response of staff and volunteers at local charities has been incredible in the face of so much uncertainty.”
The ten agencies receiving funding are Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peterborough, Canadian Mental Health Association (Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge), Community Counselling and Resource Centre, Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough, Four Counties Addiction Services Team (Fourcast), John Howard Society of Peterborough, Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre, Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre, Peterborough Youth Services and YWCA Peterborough Haliburton.
The United Way and Community Foundation are grateful to partner with donors and help in these uncertain times. Because of this generous support, $310,500 has now been granted to front-line agencies providing services related to shelter, food insecurity, mental health, addictions and gender-based violence to our community’s most vulnerable residents. Despite this generous support, not all grant requests could be fulfilled. Any additional donations to the Community Response Fund will be distributed to the eighteen participating charities by July.
Donate to the COVID-19 Community Response Fund here: https://cfgp.ca/project/covid-19-community-response-fund/
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For more information, please contact:
Jennifer DeBues
Director, Operations and Granting
Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough
Jim Russell
Chief Executive Officer
United Way Peterborough & District