Monthly Donors: Liu & Associates

Tell us a bit about your organization.

Liu & Associates LLP is a CPA firm established in Edmonton for over 25 years. We have two partners and professional staff. We have an office in both Edmonton and Calgary and have clients both in Canada, Hong Kong and China. Mr. Raymond Liu, CPA CA, HKCPA, RFP, CFP and Mr. Dwayne Loewen CPA CA are our partners. We are proud to have them head our firm. Our firm as always tried to balance what we have been blessed with what we can give back. We support four foster children in addition to our support of YESS.  Recently we made and sent 98 masks to the Michael Garon Hospital in Toronto. Most years at Christmas we will make a donation of new jackets and winter gear to the food banks to distribute and in the past, we have sometimes brought food to be prepared by cooks at YESS so that the kids could have a holiday meal.  

What inspired you to start giving to YESS?

Children’s issues have always been something we hold closely to our hearts. We started our relationship with YESS many years ago. At the time, we had provided new bedding (pillows, sheets, blankets) for all the beds at the time. We had also established a farmer’s market in our building’s parking lot where stall revenue was to go to YESS. The Blanket Project came to be when we had visited the facilities and the starkness and reality of the situation struck deeply in the heart of the staff sent out on the visit after seeing the room where all the cots were set up. The bunk beds were clean and the room was immaculate and above grade, but as is necessary for such rooms, it was not a place that was there to nurture. The room did its job well. It provided shelter. This leaves us to provide the children/young adults with more. Compared to the what our own kids had at home (along with the family and love that surrounded them) it would have been impossible to go on from that moment and do nothing to help. The thought of our own children being brought so low in life that they would need YESS was heartbreaking. We were also told that at the time, there was no budget for the kids to have a meal before they had to leave the facility in the morning (unless a donation of food or money happened to be at hand). This led to our firm’s pledge to provide a small breakfast for the kids before they had to leave each day.

What made you choose monthly giving as your way to give?

We actually do weekly giving. We wanted to ensure that the money went directly to the breakfast plan. It also was psychologically and fiscally easier to split out our giving than to have to pay out a large amount at once.

What is one thing you wish the community knew about YESS youth? 

The children/young adults who use the facilities at YESS aren’t destined to carry on to become the homeless and unfortunate people of our society. They could have a very different future. One that includes going to school. Working. Contributing to society’s benefit. We could give that to them. Just give them a chance. 

Canada is a middle class society, this means that (I know not all of us, especially at this time, but) most of us could contribute the price of a lunch for two ($30) at least once a week to give these kids the chance without missing that lunch.  Some fortunate among us, especially because of COVID-19 (saving money on gas from working at home, eating at home instead of lunching or dining out) may even be in a better position to give. I would say to these people that if you particularly want to help, if you are feeling helpless, then give. Give the chance of a life, a career, hope, family, and purpose. 

Canadians, Edmontonians, give a lot. It’s prevalent in all the different charities and Go Fund Me movements around. It’s important to not forget these kids who are always there and always in need even when some terrible tragedy hits that takes our attention away.

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Staff Interview: Tessa Mulcair

Describe where this program fits in YESS’ mission to walk beside youth on their journeys towards healing.

The Nexus overnight shelter meets a youth’s basic needs in order to allow the youth to focus on their bigger goals rather than survival. Developmentally, youth are meant to working on figuring out their identity; who they are and where they fit in the world. They should be solidifying their values, their social skills, their competencies, their passions, and preparing for life as an adult. It takes tremendous mental and emotional effort to navigate this time in all of our lives. There is no energy to work on those important milestones if you haven’t eaten in days, if you are worried about freezing to death in the winter cold, if you have to protect yourself from the constant threat of physical attacks, or if you are traversing addiction or mental health issues. Nexus is able to provide safety, shelter, food, clothing, toiletries, and other basic needs so that the youth can focus on all of the psychological, social, emotional, and physical development that their bodies are naturally throwing at them. Nexus staff are also able to support the youth in their journeys at a personal level. Staff have a deep understanding of trauma and systemic barriers which effect all of our youth. We do not guide the youth’s journey as it is not for us to decide who a youth will become and where their journey will take them, instead we walk beside them, we help them to understand their options, help them to remove barriers and allow them the space to figure out for themselves where they want to go.

In what ways has the COVID-19 crisis affected youth and staff in this program?

The world is wrestling with adjusting to new norms, none of this is easy for any of us. In that way, our youth are very much struggling with the same things all of us are. Many of their places for respite have closed down, like libraries and other youth-supporting agencies. Many youth that had found jobs have now lost them. Many who were seeking work are now on hold indefinitely. Many who had excitedly managed to get into their own home are now at threat of losing what they had worked so hard for. Many youth have had their education plans disrupted after months or years of trying to get back on track. Many youth that have made positive strides in their mental health and addiction journeys are now falling backwards.

It takes incredible resiliency for our youth to move to past the barriers in their life to attain their goals, so one of the most heartbreaking parts of the COVID-19 crisis for staff has been to watch these hard-fought gains suddenly slip away, sometimes completely out of their reach, and through no fault of their own.  

What is one thing you wish the wider community knew about YESS youth?

I wish people understood the complexity of each individual youth’s journey. There is no single way that youth become homeless and no single path that will remove them from homelessness.

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We Heal Together, We Thrive Together

Happy Spring, everyone!

May 4, 2020 marks a significant day in Alberta history as our government starts to open restrictions surrounding public gatherings and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At YESS, we are cautiously optimistic. We have worked very hard with our youth agency partners to ensure young people experiencing homelessness in our city have the basic needs, supports, and safe isolation spaces they need.

Within the span of six weeks, we have created screening and isolation protocols for our staff and youth, expanded our cleaning protocol and hired external cleaners, rearranged schedules and staffing to have our overnight shelter and daytime Armoury Resource Centre offer a safe space 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are working collaboratively with our agency partners to create a coordinated screening and referral process. 

We have everyone who can work at home doing so, and we are working directly with our partners at AHS, EPS and Children’s Services to ensure we are following the most recent protocols and recommendations. This will not change until the risk is gone. As of today, we still have no confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 amongst youth and staff.

The reality, however, is that we still need to be very careful. We have a population of young people who are typically run down and immunocompromised and our staff are essential services who must keep themselves and their families healthy. This has not been easy on any one and I believe this quote from one of our Overnight Shelter Supervisor says it all.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge amount of anxiety and fear for both the youth and the staff, as we all collectively endure this global trauma. It has fundamentally destabilized the youth’s felt-safety by disrupting their physical, relational, cultural, and legal permanency. – Camiel Friend, Nexus Overnight Shelter Supervisor

Our one job remains: to walk beside youth on their journey towards healing and appropriate community integration. And, interestingly, our message doesn’t change. We can only do this together, all of us. Even in this time of physical distancing we cannot do this in emotional, mental, or spiritual isolation. We are in this together and we will only heal together.

This May we are launching our first all-online campaign. One of the other significant effects of this pandemic is that we have had to pivot our fundraising efforts, along with all of our charity partners. I know this is a very difficult time for many people, and so we ask only that you think of us and help where you can. I have been so impressed with how our community has risen and joined hearts to take care of each other. I hope that this is only the beginning of that effort because when we heal together, we thrive together.

YESS Executive Director Margo Long's signature

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Catch Up with YESS Champion Boston Pizza

Boston Pizza has been a long-time champion of YESS and youth in Edmonton! For the past few years, they have focused their donations to the YESS overnight shelter, which has an immediate and positive impact on the prevention of youth homelessness. At YESS we focus on prevention and diversion out of youth homelessness, ensuring that the youth who access our programs have the connections back to family or safe housing situations as well as life skills, emotional regulation, relationship building, and trauma healing support to help them safely and appropriately integrate back into the community.

With the 2019 Boston Pizza Charity Golf Classic, Boston Pizza donated $15,000 to our overnight shelter program! In addition to supporting our programs, Boston Pizza also supports the spirit of connection by providing pizza dinners for movie nights and other special events we host with youth in our overnight shelter, daytime resource centre, and supportive housing programs. Moments when our youth can come together like this are truly special.

Boston Pizza was also among the restaurants who stepped up to provide meals for our youth while our Whyte Ave kitchen was being renovated!

Over the years, Boston Pizza has donated  $125,000 to various YESS programs and impacted the lives of thousands of youth. They have demonstrated amazing leadership in the cause of youth homelessness, and we are honoured to have them as part of our community walking beside youth on their journeys towards healing and appropriate community integration.

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Major TLC for the YESS Kitchen

In December our Whyte Ave kitchen underwent a major renovation. This kitchen is instrumental in providing nutritious meals for the hundreds of youth who access YESS every year across our overnight shelter, daytime resource centre, and supportive housing programs. Providing meals is a huge part of our trauma informed care practice and is an important aspect of creating an environment of felt safety for the traumatized youth in our programs. This renovation was made possible with a grant from The Home Depot Foundation, who are committed to supporting initiatives that prevent and end youth homelessness in Canada, and an amazing donations from our friends at the Community of Christ Church.

“This is a great expensive gift for Christmas!” says YESS Chef Reddy Manikyala. “Along with the new kitchen team members, our kitchen is now running smoothly and able to make all new creations. The kitchen looks 100% commercial now compared to the old one. We also got a new grill and we plan to make good use of it.”

This renovation project was an incredible opportunity for all of the YESS departments to work together to keep the agency organized, across Kitchen and Facilities, Programs, Funds Development, and Administration. We also got to work with incredible collaborators at Allegiance Mechanical Inc., Amalgamated Food Equipment, The Carpet Studio, Interspace Construction, Nordic Mechanical, Tricom Electrical Services, and WHA Industries.

While no renovation is ever easy, the hard work has already paid off as the Whyte Ave kitchen takes on another role in the lives of youth: classroom. YESS Chef Tiffany Sorensen is our Program Kitchen Coordinator and leads the culinary practicum for youth in the Youth Education and Employment Program.

“The new kitchen renovations have made a world of a difference not only for us as chefs, but also for the student chefs that are part of the Youth Education and Employment Program,” says Tiffany. “The youth in the placement can now learn out of a more professional work space, and with the new equipment we have more options to cook and teach on. Youth are able to learn a variety of cooking techniques and can receive hands on training with using commercial equipment like the grill, griddle, steamer, and gas stove. The renovations are really helping to give the youth a more realistic experience with a variety of skills and will set them up for success to work in future kitchens and/or restaurants.”

As Reddy said, this renovation was an amazing Christmas gift that will be an incredible asset to our youth and our programs for years to come. We have found that cooking and sharing meals has always created an incredible sense of community, and it means so much to grow that community with all the partners who made this renovation possible!


A HUGE thank you to these restaurants who provided breakfast and lunch for youth in our programs while our kitchen was being renovated!

Meals are a huge part of creating felt safety for our youth and it meant so much to us to see so many restaurants step forward to help!

A&W

Barb & Ernie’s Old Country Inn

Boston Pizza

De Dutch

El Cortez

High Level Diner

McDonald’s

Oodle Noodle

Original Joe’s

The Parlour

Popeyes

Subway

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Letter from Margo – Spring 2020

Hello everyone and Happy Spring!

YESS started 2020 with a very strong financial profile and a lot of excitement about the momentum we are gaining. We spent the winter months taking care of each other, celebrating some of our wins, and continuing to build upon our growing foundation of structure, processes, and trauma-informed practice. We have seen significant successes with the work of our Trauma Support Team (we have delivered over 100 individual therapy sessions and many informal group sessions since April 2019, and we have seen our EPS and crisis calls decrease) and we have been thrilled with the success of our new Youth Education and Employment Program that provides a low-barrier entrance into life, education, and employment skills as well as job shadowing and work experience with corporate community partners. We have also been working hard with our youth agency and homelessness partners to develop and improve our city strategy for the prevention of youth homelessness. In the coming year, we will begin initial planning around evolving YESS to fit within a municipal and provincial strategy for the prevention of youth homelessness. Prevention can be both early prevention (ensuring a young person never becomes homeless) and later prevention (ensuring a young person doesn’t become further entrenched in homelessness). At YESS, we are focused on late prevention—ensuring that the youth who visit us have the connections back to family or safe housing situations as well as life skills, emotional regulation, relationship building, and  trauma healing support to help them safely and appropriately integrate into community.

As the sun shines and the new shoots and bulbs grow outside, we are furiously growing our capacity and our knowledge to prepare for the big work ahead of us.

This spring, I invite you to join us in our excitement about the future—celebrating is much more fun together!

YESS Executive Director Margo Long's signature

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Letter from Margo – Winter 2019

Good winter, everyone,

As I age and move through the cold months with more focus on my discomfort, I realize I have lost my childhood joy of the gifts of winter: the snow, the bright sun, the quiet contemplation, and the wrapping of ourselves in warm comfort.  We say good evening, as we greet our fellow humans in the glow of the moonlight, intentionally appreciating the gifts of the night and acknowledging the blanket of comfort and renewal that it can bring. And so, I am choosing now to acknowledge the gifts and the joy of winter with an intentional greeting of good winter and a smile.

I have spent weeks thinking about what to write about for this edition. These letters are important to me. They help me remember what to focus on. What do I need to say? What is it time for? 

And I have been lost. 

I have been lost for a while now. 

I have been lost in the intense mission of this powerful yet delicate organization. I have been lost in the frustration and anger of a system and community that is so unfairly balanced. I have been lost in the pain of the young people I see hurting everyday: lost in their deaths, their abandonment, and their disappearances. I have been lost in the pain of a staff that is exhausted and hurt and yet still so dedicated to a solution. I have been lost in my own pain in experiencing this, and the pain of my family, both as they navigate their own lives and as they experience my pain with me. 

I chose to move into the not for profit space because my heart hurt—I needed passion and purpose (and boy did I find it). 

But I left something behind: joy. 

And I realized this week, I didn’t lose joy. 

I left it. 

I refused it. 

I let myself feel the deep hurt of our young people, of our parents and families, of the staff, of my fellow CEOs and EDs, of communities, and of my own family. But I did not let myself experience joy. How could I when there is so much suffering, when there is so much work to be done?

My intention was true—I wanted to help. But I became so lost in the trauma that I forgot what brings us out.

The opposite of trauma, in my perspective, is joy. Laughter, dance, sunshine, sport, art, music, math—whatever lights you up. Joy is vulnerable and open. It lets the light in to heal and detoxify. It is not a state that we achieve only when we are done feeling our trauma, it is something we choose to allow so that we can heal, a little bit at a time. 

In my own denial of joy, I realize that I have denied others the experience and leadership of my joy. My joy is powerful and contagious. Our joy is a gift to ourselves and others. As much as we need bearing witness of our painful stories, our collective experiences of joy can heal us all.

And so, what is it time for at YESS? It is time for a little bit of joy. We have come a long way in 2 1/2 years. We have emerged out of some very hard times and while I know there are more ahead of us, it is time to celebrate and be vulnerable in our joy. 

This good winter, I wish that you give yourselves the permission to feel JOY and celebrate the good things with us, with your loved ones, with your community. 

Together, we can heal, a little bit at a time. 

 

With my own love and joy,

YESS Executive Director Margo Long's signature

 

(header photo by Leroy Schulz)

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Winter Warming

In the winter months our Armoury Resource Centre operates on extended hours to provide a safe and warm place for youth who might otherwise have to risk the elements outside. We work with other vulnerable youth supporting agencies to determine these hours so that between us we are always providing youth with a safe place and also taking care of frontline youth workers to prevent burnout.

Armoury Resource Centre Winter Hours – effective November 15, 2019 to March 15, 2020:

Monday 9AM-8PM Friday 9AM-2PM, 5PM-8PM
Tuesday 9AM-4PM Saturday 9AM-2PM
Wednesday 9AM-4PM Sunday 9AM-8PM
Thursday 9AM-4PM

For youth who are leaving the Armoury Resource Centre to go to another program, we always strive for a “warm handoff” and allow youth to wait indoors for their pickup rather than off property.

Exposure to winter weather is dangerous for individuals experiencing homelessness. You are part of the community keeping vulnerable people safe this winter season.

Here are some ways our city works together to keep everyone safe in times of extreme cold:

  • if you see someone on the streets who you believe is in distress, call 211 to speak to the 24/7 diversion team
  • additional winter warming sites open throughout the city with extended hours
  • in the event that shelters are at or near capacity and extreme cold (-20 or colder) is in the forecast, LRT stations will open as overnight warming sites
  • in times of extreme cold, ETS vehicles will not deny passengers without tickets

It takes all of us to keep everyone in our community safe and warm in the winter months. It is a good time to remember how much we can all take care of each other.

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This year, YESS was invited to contribute to a special issue of Parity, Australia’s national homelessness publication. In their October issue, Preventing and Sustaining Exits from Youth Homelessness in Canada, there are articles from agencies across Canada including “Changing the Definition of Success” by our own Camiel Friend, Nexus Shelter Team Lead, and Jessica Day, Director of Program Innovations. We are so proud for this opportunity to share the thought leadership of our Programs team in an international publication.

Understanding A Way Home Canada’s National Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness helped us re-evaluate what was needed in order to help our youth successfully reintegrate into communities: YESS and the partners and community around us must provide safety and stability, help build self-worth, help build the tools for resilience, and help to establish a sense of belonging within the community.” 

The article that I wrote with our Director of Program Innovations, Jessica Day, entitled “Changing the Definition of Success” was our way of introducing one of the most imperative aspects of addressing the trauma of our youth:  when we measure progress and outcomes with demographics and stats, we are missing the individualized unique stories of each youth we serve. It was important that we acknowledge the various barriers our youth face in a collective manner and to present this information in a relatable and understanding way to the general population, who may not have experienced these adversities themselves.

These stories are just as important as strategic stats or demographics and, thanks to the National Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness, help to educate communities on what work and support is needed.  As well, we were able to portray how the National Framework can and needs to be applied to local agencies to help increase effective services, broaden the outcomes and stories of the youth served, and help to find a collective language and voice between the national research and our local youth stories. The language used between youth and frontline staff, amongst frontline agencies, from frontline to management and agency management to national coalitions and so on, can be a barrier all on its own. We have the ability to translate this in a way that has a clear guideline and understanding not only to our youth, but also to the people in charge of making important decisions on behalf of our youth.

This reciprocal bridge of communication directly impacts the National Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness and its success, as well as directly impacting the local success of our individual agency. This article was a wonderful opportunity to have in-depth conversations about barriers, about language, about community goals, and most importantly how to support our youth while maintaining youth-focused strategies.

– Camiel Friend, Nexus Team Lead

Read Camiel’s article and other articles from Canadian frontline youth workers at homelesshub.ca.

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Winter Giving 101

Fall is setting in at that means winter is just around the corner. Between the weather getting colder and Christmas approaching we know that donations are going to start to roll in at a rapid pace.  With this being our busiest donation time of the year by far, we thought it would be helpful to both our generous donors and our staff who handle the donations to share some more information. Let’s call it Winter Donations 101.

In winter we expand our hours at the Armoury Resource Centre to provide a safe space for our youth to seek refuge from the cold. Despite this, we know that many youth will spend hours upon hours outside and will need proper winter gear to avoid serious medical issues like frostbite, trench foot, and hypothermia.

Things we always need throughout winter: winter jackets, waterproof winter boots, gloves, balaclavas, thermal underwear, warmer clothing, warm socks, self-activating heating pads (like HotHands), lip balm, thermal bottles, headlamps/flashlights, and thermal emergency blankets.

When donating used clothing or goods please ensure that these items are still functional and presentable. For example, a winter jacket that has a broken zipper is not effective at helping keep warm and our youth do not have the funds to have clothing patched or repaired.

Gently used items will generally go directly into our donation rooms for the youth to access right away. It is very helpful if clothing is donated washed and folded, in a recycling bag or box that is clearly marked “washed”. New items, like clothing with tags still on, will generally be put away for use as Christmas gifts. If you are donating both, you could separate them for us and mark the new items as “Christmas gifts”.  We do not give used items as Christmas gifts, with the exception of electronics.

Many of our youth come from families who have struggled with poverty and did not have the luxury of showering their children with gifts. Christmas at YESS is sometimes the first time they have ever received multiple gifts. It is incredibly heart-warming to see their faces light up, usually accompanied by a wave of disbelief. These moments of joy and the feelings of gratitude carry on long after as the youth continue to enjoy their gifts throughout the year, and they are only possible because of the overwhelming generosity of people like yourself.

If you are considering purchasing Christmas gifts for our youth and would like some guidance on how to ensure your gifts are most effective, we have compiled a list of items that are most frequently asked for. You can rest assured that if you donate something on this list it will go to a youth who has specifically requested that item and will be incredibly grateful!

Winter Giving 101 list

We will collect and sort all the gifts, and then we have each youth create a wish list. Over 100 youth will be accessing YESS around Christmas time. Once we have all of those wish lists, we go through our collection of goods to customize presents for each and every youth. As you can imagine, this is a ton of work. You can help us in easing this process by removing or scratching off price tags and by not bundling presents. We know it’s super fun to create little gift packs, but in order to customize and ensure that gifts are fairly distributed, it is much easier for us to separate everything. This means if you and a group of friends are making 20 care packages for Christmas, rather than making 20 bags with one of each items in them, instead make one bag of toothbrushes, one bag of soap, one bag of shaving cream, one bag of writing pads, one bag of card games, etc.  It’s also very helpful if gift cards aren’t hidden in other items: we strive for fairness and that is easier when we know what’s going out.

You have now graduated Winter Donations 101! Thank you for reading this and taking these ideas into consideration when donating goods this season. We are constantly blown away by the outpouring of love for our youth over winter and we can tell you firsthand from being with the youth over winter and Christmas that they truly appreciate your generosity and thoughtfulness.

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