Thanks to the generous contributions of the Bridgeland Community and our wonderful donors, we are thrilled to offer our new tenants at Bishop’s Manor our first-ever Welcome Home Bundles. For many low-income Calgarians, moving into an affordable unit can be a life-changing moment with monumental impacts on their quality of life. Affordable rents can mean the difference between surviving and thriving as families. Once a household pays no more than 30% of income towards their housing, families, seniors, and individuals can allocate a reasonable portion of their income into purchasing groceries or necessary essentials.
As most of us know, moving is expensive. Setting up a new apartment comes with unexpected costs and stress. We wanted to create something special to help welcome our tenants into their new home. With our Welcome Home Bundles, we wanted to get the community involved in celebrating what for many of our tenants marks an exciting new chapter in their lives. As we’ve explored in some previous blog posts, affordable housing bolsters the local economy through the increased spending power in the hands of tenants. In the spirit of supporting the local shops that will be serving our new tenants in their new neighbourhood, we set about contacting businesses in the Bridgeland-Riverside community to gather small gifts and vouchers that the new residents can use.
We were touched by the support and interest from the community and from private donors for this initiative. For future bundles, we will be extending our reach beyond Bridgeland-Riverside to include donations from businesses across Calgary, and anyone else who has little gifts on hand they’d like to donate in bulk (for this round of bundles, our very own employee Mai hand-knitted over 100 dishcloths with her mom!)
We want to take a moment to give a special shout out to the businesses and donors who generously contributed to this first round of bundles; thank you for joining us in making our new tenant’s move-ins so special.
Spire Mortgage: The Spire Mortgage Team is a team of amazing individuals who have truly showed us the meaning of community. These ladies donate towards Forward Housing on a weekly basis- and as if that wasn’t already enough, they’ve also generously donated over 200 pairs of their “House Party” socks for our new tenants as part of the Welcome Home Bundles Thank you Team Spire- there will be no such thing as cold feet in this building!
Starbucks Calgary: There’s nothing quite like a fresh cup of coffee in the safety and peace of your own kitchen! Starbucks in Bridgeland engaged other stored throughout Calgary, and together, charitably donated a pound of coffee for each household in Bishop’s Manor. That’s over 100 pounds of coffee- Thank you team Starbucks!
Blush Lane Organic Market Bridgeland: One amazing thing about affordable housing is that when a household is no longer overspending on shelter, they have the ability to buy fresh produce and better quality groceries. Many thanks to Blush Lane Organic Market, in Bridgeland for providing our tenants with specially-made coupons. These coupons allow our tenants to visit their store and access high quality organic products at a discount.
Drizzle Honey: There’s no doubt that everyone loves honey. Drizzle Honey supplied us with sweet, delicious, artisan honey for our tenants at a generous discount which makes an incredible addition to our Welcome Home Bundles. We are also partnering with Drizzle to plant a pollinator garden around Bishop’s Manor. Supporting the natural ecosystem by planting nectar rich wildflowers generously donated by Drizzle is something that the entire Forward Housing Team is very excited about. To the Drizzle team, We couldn’t bee more thankful for your support!
These bundles have come together thanks to the generosity of the community, businesses and individuals working together to support their neighbours. This is important work for us, as we know how important a sense of belonging is for overall health and wellbeing. We continue to look for ways to engage the communities in which we operate in to ensure our tenants feel welcome and connected in their new neighbourhoods. We hope to be able to raise enough support for this initiative that we can offer a Welcome Home Bundle to every new tenant throughout our portfolio, not just those moving into Bishop’s Manor. If you are interested in supporting this initiative, please donate today. If you are a business that would like to get involved, please email aschiemann@forwardhousing.ca
