It truly is an honour to be included in a roster of so many thoughtful and committed community leaders. Paul, congratulations for what Tamarack has achieved to date, and for the inspiring vision to go much further. At the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we’re delighted to have the opportunity to support Tamarack’s important work and to be a sponsor of this conference – an event that speaks to the core of our mission – building healthy and vibrant communities across this beautiful province of ours.

And like many others I want to offer very special thanks to Minister Deb Matthews and her team. The Minister’s roadmap – Breaking the Cycle – is a collective call to action as a community of communities, and it’s that concept that I want to talk to you about today.

What we’ve found through our efforts at the Ontario Trillium Foundation – OTF – is that well-planned, locally-based community-building strategies are incredibly effective. Implementation plans need to emerge where the action is needed. We have been involved with many initiatives where the programs look a bit different from those in the next community or the next county. That is what place-based strategies are all about.

While umbrella policies and directions such as Breaking the Cycle are absolutely necessary, it’s local community implementation that makes change happen.

And that philosophy really is the underpinning of all our work at the Foundation. As I suspect most of you in this room know, the Foundation is blessed with an annual budget of $120 million from the Government of Ontario (thank you, Minister Matthews!). That healthy budget allows us to work on the building of healthy and vibrant communities.

Our grants touch four sectors – arts and culture, the environment, social and human services and sports and recreation. Why these four sectors? Well, we believe that vibrancy in each of these sectors contributes powerfully to strong communities, and, yes, the reduction of poverty. And our structure demonstrates our commitment to a community-based philosophy. While 20% of our funding goes to support important province-wide programming, a full 80% goes to local programs. We work in 16 regions, and each region has its own granting budget, one or more staff representatives, and a local volunteer Grant Review Team. Our small local offices, from Thunder Bay to Toronto, from Windsor to Ottawa, and of course right here in Kitchener (Ontario’s capital of innovation!) provide our link to communities across the province.

And whether the Foundation is funding a local theater group, a food bank, an environmental restoration, or an after-school youth basketball program, we know that local decision-making in the context of local needs and conditions will result in powerful outcomes.

Now we were delighted to see that a number of the successful programs highlighted in the Minister’s “Breaking the Cycle” report were projects that have been supported by the Foundation. The high-impact  Pathways to Education, the volunteer-driven Habitat for Humanity, the innovative Ontario Association of Foodbanks, the successful “211” program, the future-focused Social Innovation Generation (SIG), and the proven Vibrant Communities model spear-headed by Tamarack – we have been fortunate at the Ontario Trillium Foundation to have been affiliated with all. Their success is a source of pride for us.

I’d like to talk to you about several examples that illustrate the value of a place-based approach to reducing poverty. In each of these examples, OTF has funded a specific pilot or project. In most cases, these have proven to be so successful that they have become part of the fabric of their community.

My first example is a local food initiative called Nutrition for Learning, right here in Kitchener. Children who come to school hungry don’t learn as well. That’s a long-known fact and the genesis of many breakfast programs. Nutrition for Learning in Kitchener takes this a step further to include high school students and volunteers in a program called U-turn. U-turn students are engaged in food preparation as part of the program, learning important food handling skills and nutritional information while receiving a well-balanced meal.

Here are examples of feedback from participants:
• “Students are enjoying the food, as well as the social interaction that comes from eating a meal with their peers.”
• “I fell behind and I couldn’t catch up and U-turn gave me that opportunity. This program also has an amazing nutrition plan.”
• “Many discussions come up about making new foods from other cultures, it helps us discover new things.”

This kind of feedback is like music to the ears of anyone who knows that keeping kids of all ages engaged in learning can be one of the most significant ways to ensuring their social and financial health in the future.

Still in this region, I’d like to tell you about the work in Waterloo Region of the Homelessness and Housing Umbrella Group – some of you know them as HHUG.

Access to safe housing, of course, is just as important as food when it comes to preventing and reducing homelessness.  HHUG Kitchener wanted to conduct the research that would contribute to a reliable report card on the issues of housing stability in their region. A knowledge base would help raise the profile of homelessness and would hopefully lead to action.

I am delighted to report that today more than 125 individuals and organizations have joined HHUG Kitchener and are actively engaged in information sharing, the partnering of resources and in promoting best practices. I’m sure that some of the partners are in the room today. Your efforts have enhanced the level of collaboration on a vital issue. 

The HUGG report card has become an important tool.  The level of community awareness to homelessness continues to rise with HHUG Kitchener having just released its second annual report card.  Reassuringly, the report card tells us that there have been some improvements since last year!

Next, let me tell you about an initiative called Connection Children and Youth in Burlington. For those who live in poverty, family stresses often lead to intervention by the child welfare system. Parents, sometimes struggling with addictions or other mental health issues, sometimes don’t have the skills to provide safe and reliable parenting. They don’t know where to turn to for help and support.

As we know, those children in CAS care, as well as those teetering on the cusp of direct intervention, are most likely to suffer from a range of social, economic and emotional problems.

Study after study has shown that young people in the care system are at-risk of dropping out of school, and the cycle of poverty sometimes seems inevitable.
 
Recognizing the need for a long-term solution, a collaboration of three community organizations – the Nelson Youth Centre, the Halton Children’s Aid Society and Halton Child and Youth Services – started a program aptly named “Connection Children and Youth”.  Burlington-area children who are deemed “at-risk” are able to address their issues through targeted after-school and short-term day programs.

What makes this program so interesting is that parents are involved in a parallel program to help them rebuild the family unit. 

I heard a story from the agency of a family with two daughters – both of whom were at high risk of being taken into foster care. Things seemed headed toward a further downward spiral when the older sister dropped out of the after-school program.  But she reappeared when her younger sister entered the program.  Efforts to connect the older child and mom with community agencies paid off.  With her older daughter exhibiting more optimism than ever before, the mother has managed to build and maintain valuable community connections.

I’d now like to turn to Hamilton, where we have been involved with the innovative Community Economic Development Network, sponsored by the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton-Wentworth. The network has brought together a diverse group of organizations from the private and not-for-profit sectors. Focusing on the Riverdale neighbourhood in Hamilton East, an area that is home to a large number of immigrant families, the program has helped establish a number of licensed day care centres.

Day care spaces are now offered in 23 different languages. One of the aspects of this program that is really valuable is that most of these privately-run day care centres are in the homes of first-generation immigrants. Immigrant parents, who are comfortable leaving their children in day care centres with culturally-appropriate food and programming, are able to go to work, with the “peace of mind” of knowing who their children are with.

This valuable program provides the entrepreneurs with training in everything from nutrition and fitness to child development, literacy and behaviour guidance. The women in the program get assistance with loans for home improvements and obtaining a day care licence.

Moving onto my next example, one we are very proud of at the Foundation is the United Way Community Matters project, an initiative of 17 of the smallest United Ways in the province.  These are United Ways in small towns or rural communities, so small that they had never had the resources to conduct a community needs assessment.

Many of us tend to believe that life in small town Ontario is idyllic.  And city folk sometimes contribute to the mythology because the grass seems greener on the other side of the country fence.

But through the Community Matters project, the grim realities of rural poverty proved telling when local United Ways uncovered them.  What they found was unexpectedly heart-wrenching and, for the first time, the data confirmed what those who were out there in field suspected.

For instance, the profound poverty evident among seniors was compounded by a lack of access to health care. Or, for young adults, an inability to find a job because of a lack of public transportation.  Thirteen and 14-year-olds were anxious about finding jobs to help their mothers, often prompting them to leave school early. Sometimes they are successful in finding a part-time job that has a serious impact on their school work.  Pre-teens talked about drug use in their schools, and other social problems.

Kelly Gilson of United Way of Oxford County, who is here today, told me that with Community Matters, it was the first time that the words poverty, hunger and homelessness were talked about in her community.

As a result of the Community Matters research, the 17 small United Ways have been able to develop local programs that are helping reduce poverty and isolation in their communities. They have been working with community partners to seek new solutions to the problem of inadequate transportation. And they’re collaborating with local municipalities and service providers, all of whom valued and appreciated the new information.

For my last example, I’d like to turn to a grant that we only announced last week. It’s one that we have very high hopes for.  The Sault Ste Marie Innovation Centre is partnering with the Garden River First Nation, the Anishnabek Information Technology Centre and the local YMCA, to develop an innovative new program called ProtoLaunch. The initiative will teach hard-to-employ young people to use their passion for video games to work on the development of new games. The multiple goals of this idea are fascinating – community economic development in a “hot” industry, encouraging youth to stay in their community, creating post-secondary education and employment opportunities, and, of course, addressing poverty. This program is probably risky because it’s so innovative, but given the partnerships involved, and the passions of these young “basement warriors” – we’re very optimistic.

At the outset of my remarks this morning, I stated that Breaking the Cycle was our collective call to action as a sector. I’ve outlined several examples of the types of programs that have and are making a difference. The key is that they are unique to their communities. They are place-based responses and they are all different.

So as I move to wrap-up, I’d like to offer the following as observations that I hope will contribute to our dialogue today:

1. The solutions that have big impact do not necessarily require huge financial resources. It’s amazing what can sometimes be achieved with modest resources combined with inspiring leadership and community will.
2. Community collaboration is key. Time and again, we have seen that the most successful initiatives are those that have brought together a cross-section of community partners, including different levels of government, local businesses, and the not-for-profit sector.
3. Working with the entirety of the family unit can be very powerful. We saw that in the Burlington Connection Children and Youth example I spoke about, and we also saw it in spades with the Regent Park Pathways to Education project that I’m sure everyone is aware of.
4. Community-based research, such as the HHUG Kitchener report card, and the United Way Community Matters initiative, are important in defining the problems, setting the benchmarks and measuring success.
5. Rural poverty is an issue that does not get the attention it deserves, perhaps because it’s often hard to see. The strategies need to be different in rural communities, and the lack of transportation is a key issue.
6. The field of poverty reduction is crying out for innovation. As Ontario’s demographics shift and the economy encounters significant re-structuring, tried-and-true solutions to poverty reduction will be less and less effective. We have to be bold enough to take some risks and allow some of our initiatives to fail as we learn together.
7. Sustainability is often a challenge. Funders need to be open to multi-year commitments, and funders and grantees need to work together to be creative in seeking sustainable solutions.
8. To succeed, new initiatives need a champion, a leader. Some of the most successful examples of leadership come from outside the not-for-profit or the public sectors. In Toronto, the community leadership of businessman David Pecaut has been incredibly successful in building community and alleviating poverty.
9. As Minister Matthews said earlier today, “It probably doesn’t matter where you start – just start”.
10. To come back to the theme of this conference, place-based strategies do work – if there are committed partners at the table, and there is strong, community-based visionary leadership.

Simply stated, none of these are easy to achieve, but that’s our job.
So, let’s get on with it! There’s lots for us to do today, tomorrow and in the months ahead.

At the Ontario Trillium Foundation, with the ongoing support of the government, and a terrific team of volunteers and staff, we stand ready to work aggressively with you to significantly reduce poverty in this province. Thank you.