Rotary of Woodstock-Oxford has been working to see how it can help alleviate Homelessness in Woodstock for some time now.
A group of Rotary members have been helping out at the Community Free Table for about a year and a half now.
Through helping out with the table we were exposed to the hardship that some members of our society have to go through in life.
Homelessness is one of the things you will hardly see until you start working at the Community Free Table and start talking to the people being served by the table.
Here we see people coming to the table that have no shelter with heat and safety, we see people with frozen hands, were there fingers are pure white and swollen that it is scary to see, were their skin is starting to peal off their fingers because of the frost.
Most persons in daily life never see these things.
And they are not the only people that show up, also people that have an apartment but don't have enough money left for food.
Some people come to have someone to talk to.
It is for this reason the Rotary of Woodstock-Oxford has started a process to see how we can help the shelterless people and others. It all started because one member( Adrienne Augustine) of the Rotary of Woodstock-Oxford, her vision is to align with our community to help form a PathWay Into Prosperity. Through consultation we found Woodstock Tiny Homes Community to be the most urgently needed stepping stone to help people transcend out of homelessness.
Out of this process, Rotary members and partners from the community formed a committee and started working on Woodstock Tiny Homes Community Initiative where we could supply people with a Tiny Home, warm and safe, that they will be able to call their own if they so desire.
This process will not take away the drug and addiction problems some of the people are facing, but that problem will never leave the people if we don't start at the beginning and supply them with a safe and warm place to stay and then try to connect them to the Health and other Services if they desire to do so.
Today we started building our first Tiny Home in the parking lot of Home Hardware and Home Building with the help of community partners Tim Bentum, Peter Scheepers and his son, Peter Graansma, Chris Eby, who volunteered their time and Home Hardware donating the lumber for the first Tiny Home.
The Tiny Home will be on display at Home Hardware for the time being. This project still needs City of Woodstock approval.
If you have an interest in helping people in need, you can donate at www.woodstockoxfordrotary.org and click on donate and the Woodstock Tiny Home Community will show, just click on it and fill in your donation. You will receive a tax receipt in your email, please make sure your email is filled in correctly.
You can also donate by cheque made out to Rotary of Woodstock-Oxford Benefit Trust, designate to Tiny Homes, and send to:
Rotary of Woodstock-Oxford
c/o Peter Stam
656441 15th Line, RR#7
Woodstock, On. N4S 7W2