Sanctuary Ministries
Report on Mustard Tree Activities
Prepared by Alan J. Beattie, Managing Director
August 1, 2007
When we received our grant from the TIDES Canada Foundation, we were working to complete renovations to our Sanctuary West facility and preparing to move in with our Supportive Employment Program (called Mustard Tree) and our Arts Studio Program. It’s amazing to think back on the months that have passed since that time and the development that we have seen in the Supportive Employment program.
To begin with, our Sanctuary West facility looks wonderful. Thanks to the generous support of numerous donors including TIDES Canada, we have been able to put the finishing touches on the Shop. All of the tools are hooked up and regularly in use. A large window has been added into the second-floor lunch room where vital team meetings take place. It goes without saying that the natural light, along with the fresh air, make this space much more liveable! The “locker room” and bathroom and shower area have been properly finished affording our participants a sense of dignity and worth which is too often lacking in their lives. It was important to us to furnish the Shop properly without being extravagant and we have accomplished just that.
Wayne Rumsby started developing our Supportive Employment program several years ago, ran the program for one year in a leased space and is now overseeing it in its new and permanent home. In August of last year, we welcomed Steve Hunter on staff to work alongside Wayne in the shop and to offer administrative and operational expertise as a fitting complement to Wayne’s vision-casting and pastoral skills. We are confident that the addition of Steve will be essential for the long-term stable development of the program.
At present, we have four community members working alongside Steve and Wayne three days each week – two of whom have been in the program for most of the year, one young woman who has just started a few months ago and another man who was in the program for several months, left and has now returned. For all of the participants, we see ample evidence that are benefiting greatly. Their wood-working skills are coming along nicely and they have produced and sold some beautiful pieces of furniture. In the Spring, in fact, we hosted an event for a church and sold more than $2,000 of Mustard Tree product – that was a tremendous boost for the participants.)
More importantly, however, our program participants are really catching on to the most fundamental benefits of the program: an increased sense of dignity and self-worth, developing the discipline of ‘showing up’ regularly for work, learning to overcome barriers in the workplace, and ultimately, a deepening sense of belonging to this community of Sanctuary. It is thrilling to see them coming to life in these ways and to see the spill-over benefits that their work at the Shop is having in other areas of their lives including a return to schooling for one of the men.
Having said all of that, however, it should also be said that we are continually reminded of the enormous challenges that face our friends who have lived on and off the street for so many years. We realize that:
- They suffer a “poverty of imagination” – they have a hard time envisioning themselves off welfare;
- They don’t really believe that they can achieve excellence consistently and so it is easy for them to settle for less;
- They struggle to prioritize, often letting small and insignificant issues derail them from the larger vital issue of restoring their sense of self-worth and dignity through meaningful employment.
As we are confronted daily with these issues as well as many others, we are reminded that our program needs to teach far more than simple wood-working skills and that it must include goals apart from simple employability. We continue to discuss these issues regularly and are involving our whole staff team of 13 in addressing them for each of our participants.
It is worth noting as well that, earlier in the year, there were two men working at the Shop, both of whom benefited tremendously but ultimately removed themselves from the program. One of those men, as mentioned above, has since returned. The issues that led each of them to leave the program – some of which are described above – are very much the sorts of issues that we fully expect to encounter as we work with our community. So their departures didn’t, in one sense, come as a surprise.
But we have continued to work with each of them in other ways and take it as a real ‘sign of success’ that one of them is willing to try again. It has been encouraging to see, in each case, that their decision to exit the program did not lead them to abandon the broader Sanctuary community but, rather that they knew that there was still a warm welcome here for them. That overarching sense of belonging is essential for us and so we are encouraged to know that they clearly ‘got it’.
In summary, the last 12 months have been greatly rewarding. We can see development in our programming and know that it will prove foundational to future development as well. We are grateful to our broad base of supporters for the emotional, spiritual and financial support which they have offered, and particularly to the TIDES Canada foundation for your generous support of us here at Sanctuary.
