TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS REQUIRED
Living beyond ourselves to love, serve, and include the poor and marginalized.
HOMELESSNESS
St. Catharines Location
The Southridge Shelter is a 24/7 emergency hostel and community of refuge for those without a home.
With 55 beds, the shelter is located right in the church facility at our Glenridge location. We have dorms for men and women, each offering beds, showers, and washroom facilities. We serve three nutritious and delicious meals each day, and we provide support to our residents by partnering with experts such as Ontario Works, Niagara Health System, and Housing Help.
We also strive to be about way more than just a place to stay and a bite to eat. That’s why we offer personal one-on-one coaching, daily spiritual life programming, and recreational programs including team-sports, creative arts, indoor rock-climbing, and coffee times.
Since opening in April of 2005, we have served over 250,000 meals, offered over 100,000 bed nights, and seen more than 10,000 men and women find a place of safety, community, and hope within the walls of our church.
Get involved with the Southridge Shelter
The Vineland community reaches out to hundreds of Caribbean farm workers who find seasonal employment and a home-away-from-home in Niagara.
Canada welcomes nearly 27,000 migrant workers each year, and many of these men and women work right here in Niagara. The majority of workers have families in their home country who are dependent on the money they make here in Canada. Caribbean workers are a vital part of a thriving Niagara yet, unfortunately, they often deal with significant social exclusion and loneliness.
Since launching in 2012, God has done more through this initiative than we could’ve imagined. Today, nearly two thirds of our Vineland location is involved and connected in friendship with over 250 men through farm visits, social events, and personal relationships.
Get involved with the Caribbean workers
The Southridge community in Welland works to love and serve low-income families in several different ways.
The Southridge community in Welland works to love and serve low-income families both through Southridge Kitchen meals, and programing for kids through our partner, Rose City Kids.
‘Southridge Kitchen’ encompasses the service we provide to our local friends through free meals prepared and served from our Southridge Welland Location, as well as meals prepared together and taken home to provide for families and individuals.
The latter is conducted as a ‘collective’ kitchen, in which participants from our low-income community contribute $25, cook alongside a group of volunteers, share a freshly prepared meal together, and leave with 25 servings of 4 different meals to be frozen and eaten throughout the following weeks.
Southridge Kitchen is a new initiative as of 2018.
Through our long-time partner, Rose City Kids, programs are run to help kids feel loved and valued, while allowing them to have fun, learn new things, and develop positive behaviours. The mission is to inspire each child to believe that they have been created for a purpose by a God who loves them.
In addition to the main Saturday program, we offer support through tutoring programs, leadership development, and parenting programs to provide encouragement and support to the entire family.
Rose City Kids launched its very first program in March 2008 with 13 children and today there are over 550 children registered!
Get involved with Rose City Kids
All together, we partner with Compassion Canada to rescue moms and babies from poverty in the name of Jesus.
Our goal as a church is to maximize our global impact in reaching out to the poorest of the poor in the developing world, while at the same time, maximizing involvement and contribution in our church. To achieve the greatest possible impact in fighting global poverty, we rally together around a unified global anchor cause of child survival.
In partnership with Compassion Canada, we team up with incredible churches in the developing world that share a vision and passion to serve those in need, and we come alongside them to support the healthy and holistic development of mothers and young children in their community. Today, we support seven Child Survival Programs in Ecuador, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Uganda (2), and Rwanda (2).
We also encourage everyone at Southridge to live as a hometown missionary by investing in a personal relationship with a child in poverty through Compassion’s Child Development & Sponsorship Program.
