Past President Gerd opened the meeting in the absence of Basil Dias

Anthem: Peter Masson

Grace: Barry Smith

Toast to the Queen, Canada and Rotary – Past President Gerd

Guests: Vern Barney from The Willowdale Club, David Merrell from Agincourt Club and our guest speaker Sonia Zesllori from Julliette’s Place

 

Vern took this opportunity to advise our club of the new meeting time and location for the Willowdale club. Thornhill Country Cluub, 7994Yonge St 2^nd & 4^th Thursdays at 6:30 pm.

            Dave Hardy, back from his up-north travels, fined all those who did not order fish & chips from the BR menu to-day.  (Your scribe is a witness to this being a conflict of interest situation as Dave had exempted himself from this call).  The restaurant almost ran out of F & C to-day.

Happy bucks were called for and Arthur obliged:

First, Arthur started off with a “clean” story.  This was about children drawing God.  Well the children that he did meet were at the Precious Blood Elementary School who had drawn many Valentines for our club members as a thank you for the breakfast program that we have initiated this year (underwritten by Gerd & Park Property Mgt).  

 Al Meredith was happy to be back from his time away in the south.

Gerd was happy to have survived an encounter that his dog had with a skunk.  The dog lost and great efforts are underway (mostly by Dorothy) for his restoration to their household. But some commentators said it may take months to banish the skunk perfumery.

Gerd also is awaiting the arrival of a new exhaust pipe for his plane.  It had broken and the replacement didn’t fit and they expect/hope to fly off to the Bahamas this weekend.  Oh well where is Speedy Muffler King when you need him?

Arthur reported that he was joined by Frank Allison, & Basil to present the last breakfast funding cheque for the Precious Blood School yesterday. 

 

Donna Salamalay introduced our guest speaker, Sonia Zesllori an outreach worker from Julliette’s Place located somewhere in Malvern.  The focus of their mandate is to provide short term emergency shelter for assaulted women and their children, and single assaulted women.

Sonia went on to tell us that Julliette’s Place was established in 1990, as a homeless family shelter. The name came about because very early on after the home was established a lady named Julliette Raino, who, shortly after she left the home, was stabbed to death in front of her children by her abusive husband. Since 1996 that name was given the house in Julliette’s honour.

The shelter was founded by the Ontario Ministry of Housing and Ministry of Social Services. It is a 35 bed shelter with 13 rooms on 3 floors of the house. There is a dining room where they serve meals to all residents including children. Advocates are available for the women and the children and legal support who liaison with legal aid lawyers.  An agency is available to assist with language support. They have as many as 96 languages that can be accessed to provide support.  An interpreter can be made available on a next day basis.  Tuesdays are used for introducing community support people so that when the client or family leaves the shelter they will be able to access other support networks. Thursdays provide an opportunity for feedback from the clients as to what is working and what is not for them to return to the community.  They can remain in Julliette’s Place until settled in alternate houseing but no longer than 3 months.  That restriction is dictated by their mandate and the funding made available by the government for the shelter. A housing worker is available and they try to make contact with the landlord when suitable rental housing is found.  Often, there is as long as a 6 months waiting list to be able to access public housing.  Programs for the children occur on the Tuesdays and Thursdays when the moms meet upstairs; they meet downstairs.  After-school programs are also provided for the kids and that is supported by volunteers who come to the shelter.  For safety reasons, the Moms are not accommodated in this shelter if they live nearby. That means liaison with the local schools to place the children who may have come from the west side of the city. Next day access for day care is available.  Because they are a shelter, they have been given a cue-jumping priority for the children in need whose mothers need to go to work.

 

A picnic is held twice a year, one next August, when 35 “graduating’ residents and their children are invited to a picnic often held in Neilson Park in Scarborough. In December they have a Christmas party which this year hosted 25 families. The Food Bank workers come in and deliver food every other week  It is always hard to say to a family in need that the shelter is full and they won’t be able to be accommodated but the shelter staff will use all their network to try to provide shelter elsewhere.

 

Sonia responded to several questions about other shelters like this one, government and other financial support, vacancy rate, community support for clothing and other personal needs, how women learn about the shelter etc. Listen to the whole 20 minute presentation on the link.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcp07i2nv7za3vj/Julliette%27s%20Place.MP3?dl=0

 

When she had completed the Q & A session, Sonia was presented with a certificate from Operation Eyesight by Arthur who commented on how terrible it is that in our society today we have men who abuse women and children and force them to seek out a shelter like Julliette’s.

 

Gerd closed the meeting and a link to Sonia’s recorded presentation attached.