Heart, Love & Soul food pantry has been providing food and support to the less fortunate in the city of Niagara Falls for decades now. The Ontario Avenue soup kitchen, currently let by Sister Beth Brosmer, serves as a house of faith and restoration day in and day out in a community where, unfortunately, many individuals and families struggle to get by.
Supporters of the organization — from Brosmer on down — have consistently held to the highest standards in terms of generosity, kindness and care. The support the pantry receives from private businesses and outside agencies is a testament to its trustworthiness and productivity as an organization.
While Heart, Love & Soul has always relied on the generosity of others to help support its services and good work, the food pantry has now embarked on a different sort of mission aimed at expanding its offerings, and by extension the offerings of other area charitable groups. Representatives from Heart, Love & Soul have announced a capital campaign aimed at raising money for a program they are calling Daybreak.
Part of the plan involves raising money to help with the renovation of a recently acquired building at 924 Niagara Ave. Heart, Love & Soul officials want to use the renovated structure, located behind the current food pantry building, as a home for Daybreak, which is designed to build upon existing programming by providing additional basic services and dedicated space to allow various partner agencies to help people directly on-site.
“By bringing a variety of services together in one accessible location, we can improve the effectiveness of our efforts and make a greater collective impact on our community and individuals in need,” Brosmer noted.
The new center would offer shower and laundry facilities, a multi-purpose community room, computer lab, additional space for case management and care coordination, a reflection room, and offices for partner agencies to deliver a variety of services on a rotating basis. Clients will be able to access services for housing, health and wellness, behavioral health, employment and training, education, financial literacy, legal support and more.
Renovation work on the building is expected to begin in May, with plans to open the facility in the fall. There is, of course, still money to be raised. The project tab, inclusive of construction, start-up and operating costs, is expected to be roughly $3.5 million. So far, the food pantry has pulled together about $2.6 million. The difference is where the community comes in.
Few organizations have done so much by asking for so little and helped as many people in need as Heart, Love & Soul has in its lengthy and noteworthy history. Sister Beth, members of the organization’s board and others who have long supported the goals of the food pantry have proven themselves worthy of making wise use of monetary contributions and other donations for many, many years now.
The appropriately named Daybreak offers yet another opportunity for the generous people who live in and around the Niagara Falls to do their part to support a project that promises to be yet another ray of sunshine in the community’s North End.
We encourage all residents and business owners who have the means to give what they can to help the Heart, Love & Soul food pantry — an organization that has done so much for so many for so many years — raise the funding needed to make Daybreak not just a reality but a rousing success of which the entire community can be proud.
