JUNE 2020

SUMMER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION 6/27/2020 Our Summer Solstice Garden Blessing, has been a great tradition over many years for our community. Typically we would gather in our community garden to "bless" the land and the people with drumming, songs, poems, strawberries and good wishes. Since gathering in that way isn't possible in June of 2020, we invited some friends to share their good words (and some sweet songs) with us through video clips from their home. We hope you enjoy these thoughts and we want to thank the many contributors. Special thanks to our musical guests, David Newland (Cobourg, ON), Julian Taylor (Toronto, ON) and Linda McRae (Nashville, TN). Happy summer everyone and let's hope we'll gather again, soon! [Thanks to the amazing Lana Missen for assembling this fun production]

TAKING STOCK AT 10 YEARS 6/21/2020

On June 10 David Sheffield marked his 10th year with Green Wood Coalition. The following is taken from his special report to the Board of Directors.

This month marks my 10th anniversary with Green Wood Coalition. I’m proud to have been associated with this bold adventure and thankful to be working alongside remarkable people as we creatively seek new ways to live as a community, while pursuing personal and social change for many individuals and our community.

A lot has happened over 10 years, and when I came across this piece of writing by the late Irish poet, John O’Donohue, it offered some important perspective.

“All through your life, the most precious experiences seem to vanish. Transience turns everything to air. You look behind and see no sign even of a yesterday that was so intense. Yet in truth, nothing ever disappears, nothing is lost. Everything that happens to us in the world passes into us. It all becomes part of the inner temple of the soul and it can never be lost. This is the art of the soul: to harvest your deeper life from all the seasons of your experience.”

We find ourselves in the midst of both a global pandemic and the most significant public protest against institutional racism and oppression we have seen in decades. It’s time for taking stock of where we’re at, personally and collectively.

As a white male, I am challenged to think and act on my own privilege and the benefits I enjoy at the expense of those who have suffered under the same system that has rewarded me. I ask myself, “Am I the oppressed or the oppressor?” The next question I might ask is, “What can I do to change that?”

From our earliest days as an ad hoc group of people who cared about their neighbours, I have viewed Green Wood as part of a movement for social change. The women who first reached out to Greenwood Motel residents, who were buried under layers of poverty of many kinds, drew us into this movement for change. They showed up with hope that a different future was possible for people who had been pushed aside. They listened to and amplified the voices of people who had been ignored and “shushed” for years.

These days, Green Wood Coalition is an amazing collection of members who are fully engaged in keeping alive the passion of the grassroots initiative that birthed a social change organization. I don’t think I’m the only one who has found this experience transformational. Those of us who have followed look back to those visionaries for inspiration, while recognizing we have a lot of work left to do. We’re here for the long game.

We are living through a disruptive time, but I believe this upheaval will lead to something better -- more listening, more understanding, more equitable systems and more action on things we can change. Maybe this will move us toward that better future we’ve been working for. Whatever unfolds, one thing is clear: maintaining the status quo will be a step backward.

-David Sheffield

INCH BY INCH, ROW BY ROW 6/12/2020

While we're managing the COVID-19 regulations around operating a community garden, our members have begun planting seed and bedding plants in hope of sunny days ahead. Special thanks to Community Power Northumberland for their support for our Community Garden in Port Hope.

MAY 2020

COMMUNITY 101 VIRTUALLY LIVE 5/24/2020

Community 101 Goes (Facebook) LIVE!

Join us for our first virtual Community 101 Thursday, May 28 when we ask the question: What are the questions we should be asking ourselves at this time?

This interactive event will feature the reflections of panelists Elizabeth Palermo - writer, mother, community connector; Rick Beaver - artist, naturalist and member of Alderville First Nation; and Kerri Kightley - homelessness strategist and Green Wood Coalition board member, with a guest appearance by poet Carol Anne Bell-Smith.

Moderator Rev. Neil Ellis will collect online comments and questions from the chat box to share with the panelists over the one-hour discussion. It all begins at 7:00 p.m.on Green Wood Coalition’s Facebook page, live, from your home!

THE FACE OF STREET OUTREACH 5/24/2020

Every day, Nicole Whitmore steps into forgotten and hidden places to deliver supplies, comfort and, ultimately, save lives. Where once people living in poverty, experiencing physical and mental health challenges and addiction got by with the help of friends, food banks, rides to a clinic, today they hide. The streets are bare, public buildings and washrooms are closed, and the homeless and hurting have retreated.

“This is what the pandemic has done -- really pushed people out and exposed them,” says Green Wood Coalition’s outreach and addictions worker. “People don’t want to be seen. They’re really appreciative I can bring them supplies every week, so they don’t have to feel the shame of being stared at because they’re not wearing a mask or because they’re walking in groups. Everybody would notice three guys walking to the pharmacy every couple of days to pick up needles.

“So for us, at Green Wood, it’s ‘what can we do to keep people safe and not be swallowed up by the stigma of addiction during COVID-19?’”

The human cost of hiding

Isolation is dangerous in the world of illicit drugs, which increasingly come poisoned with Carfentanil and other unknown substances that can turn a minimal dose lethal. Last month, two Northumberland County residents died from overdoses. Naloxone, the opioid antidote, can’t be self-administered, so it’s of little help if you’re using drugs alone.

Thirteen years ago Nicole was living a life much like the people she supports. She was an IV drug user, homeless and isolated from her family and hometown. Every day tested her will to live; survival was a monumental effort.

“Nobody’s happy. No one wants to live like that. Every single person gets tired of being in survival mode 24/7. They don’t want to lose everything. They don’t want to feel utterly alone. They want a normal life, but normal seems so far in the distance because there’s so much trauma to work through.”

Surviving the pandemic In formal circles, a lot of Nicole’s work is called Harm Reduction. Checking in on about 20 people each week delivering food, soap, hand sanitizer, hygiene products, Naloxone kits and exchanging new needles for used, she’s focused on keeping people safe. She passes on alerts about dangerous drugs that could be circulating and makes sure people know whom to call if they develop COVID symptoms. And they talk -- conversations that are “extra tough” these days. “Just imagine. These are people who are trying to survive. They had the normal -- their normal -- things they were coping with prior to COVID 19, which is trauma, emotional pain, mental health and addictions. All of that plus homelessness, and then you piggyback a pandemic onto that. ​ “We can talk about housing and maybe doing this and that toward their recovery, but when everything is closed or resources are very limited, how do you keep this spark alive until the end of the pandemic when, maybe, you can do something? “I keep trying to light a beacon, a candle of hope.”

If we can’t relate, we can’t understand

To some, her work is heroic; to others, misguided.

“I think people objecting to harm reduction don’t understand that the root causes of addiction go much deeper than an initial choice a person makes to use substances. It’s the reason people had to make that choice we should be looking at.

“There are people out there who’ve come up against some serious stuff, but they had a healthy support system and a healthy way of being able to process and cope with it. Not everyone has that. For the person experiencing addiction, at some point something happened they couldn’t cope with. The emotional pain was overflowing, and they needed to numb it.

“I wish we treated people with substance dependency like we treat our children if they have pain we can’t see. If a child is in pain and crying and has behaviour issues because of their pain, but we can’t see where it’s coming from and they aren’t able to express that, we do everything to try to figure it out. I wish we had that kind of mentality when it came to people with addictions. They’re in pain. We just can’t see it.”

A new normal

Think back a few months, before COVID-19 commandeered our lives. Green Wood, which for 10 years was known mostly as a Port Hope charity, had expanded its street outreach into Cobourg to address its growing homeless and opioid crises. So, for Nicole, what she does hasn’t changed, just how she does it.

“This, to me, feels like it’s going to be my new norm. You can’t expect people to just go and get the supplies they need to stay safe, so my connection with folks has increased. The most important part is building relationships, and we’ve managed to do that really successfully, and we’ll continue to do that beyond this pandemic."

“Because this will pass, and we’re going to get through this together.”

[We appreciate the financial partnership of Northumberland United Way and PARN in this work.]

#GIVINGTUESDAY 5/5/2020

APRIL 2020

STEPPING INTO THE NEED 4/26/2020 Lana Missen finds herself in the thick of Green Wood Coalition’s response to COVID-19 -- a role she never would have imagined a few short months ago. The 28-year-old supports the outreach team, spells them off when they’re weary and pitches in how ever she can to help those whose lives have been disrupted by homelessness in the midst of a pandemic.

You need only to believe in destiny to understand Lana Missen is exactly where she is supposed to be.

And where she is, on the frontlines of Green Wood Coalition’s response to COVID-19, only fate could have had a hand in.

The 28-year-old spends her days supporting David Sheffield and Nicole Whitmore at Ground Zero of Northumberland’s homelessness crisis. The Green Wood outreach team is working with people at the Transition House temporary shelter in Cobourg, at emergency accommodation in Port Hope, on the streets, in secluded spots where a few have taken refuge -- wherever COVID-19 ambushed those who are homeless.

And none of these places is where Lana expected life to lead her.

“Green Wood has changed my life. It is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Growing up in Cobourg, Lana eagerly traded small-town life for the city, earning a degree from the Ontario College of Art and Design and later specializing in art administration at Humber College.

She had a “sense” poverty and homelessness existed in Northumberland County but hadn’t witnessed it. Then in 2016, she was hired as a summer student by Green Wood.

“It’s changed my perspective. It’s changed my understanding about really working toward having a radical sense of empathy. We all have something to offer, and we all have something to give.”

She went on to do a three-year stint in donor engagement and fundraising at Sketch, a not-for-profit organization in Toronto dedicated to arts education for marginalized youth. But worn down by city life, Lana was questioning her future. Then Green Wood called.

“I took a huge risk. I had a full-time job with benefits. I left that to work at Green Wood for three days a week over a summer. I knew it would pay my gas and my phone bill.”

The job was extended this past fall and, supplemented by other part-time work, Lana settled in as Green Wood’s Capacity Development Coordinator. Then COVID-19 struck.

“Back in 2016, I didn’t know anything about Green Wood. But coming back this time, I knew I needed Green Wood in my life, its humanity, its principles. It makes me feel whole.”

Work at the frontline of this crisis is tough. She spends her days helping people whose already tumultuous lives have been completely disrupted.

Yet, she sees hope.

“I think we’ve been given a strange gift by the pandemic in that we can choose to keep the things that have worked and change what hasn’t. It’s really sad it’s taken a pandemic for people to notice homelessness, but it feels like there’s a lot of potential for change to happen.”

HOMELESS IN A PANDEMIC 4/20/2020

We're proud to be working collaboratively with Transition House and Northumberland County, walking alongside people who are experiencing homelessness, in the midst of this pandemic.

CELEBRATING THOSE WHO VOLUNTEER 4/15/2020

A MESSAGE FROM THE FRONTLINES 4/5/2020

Dear Friends, ​Change is our new reality. Last week I told a friend, “Today feels better than it did two days ago. Some things are working better, like people who are homeless having a place to go during the day.” Then a couple was forcibly evicted from a tent where they were living, along a wooded area of Cobourg Creek. Green Wood was supporting them with food and other necessities. There aren’t a lot of safe options for individuals experiencing homelessness right now, and the couple was actually better off where they were. It would mean making an exception for these people, but aren’t we living in an exceptional time? This is the sort of radical disruption we face daily. We think, “This thing is going to work or that’s going to work” and then, like the tent, a solution you thought you had can’t happen anymore. Some days are pretty hard, pretty exhausting.

READ MORE

WE SALUTE 4/1/2020

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of learning and re-learning new ways of doing things on the frontlines of homelessness in our community. Great new collaborations have been created that are making some things work better. We salute these people, some of the frontline, face-to-face workers who are showing up each day for people who are most at risk and least able to change their life situation. Thanks to staff from Transition House and Salvation Army for being there in the trenches with us.