Harvest - October 2024 Newsletter
It’s harvest time and I hope you’re enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of your labour with the beautiful produce available at this time of year.
We’re just rounding out apple picking season and I wanted to share a bit of trivia with you about apples. Did you know the seeds in your apple cannot be used to grow a tree with the same type of apple? It’s true!
Seeds from a Macintosh will not give you a Macintosh tree, nor seeds from a Granny Smith or any other kind. Growing an apple tree from seed will give you an apple tree (if you’re patient and take good care of it), but it will be its own unique kind of apple (possibly an inedible one). And that tree you’ve planted may also take a decade or more before producing fruit.
For those wondering: in order to get a tree with a predictable variety of apple, you graft a branch of an existing tree onto what is called rootstock.
This concludes Gardening Tips With Travis – but wouldn’t it be nice if people were as predictable as that grafted branch?
In reality, people aren’t quite so straightforward. We must treat everyone more like the tree grown from a seed – each an individual, bringing unique perspectives, challenges, and goals whether they come to us for help with food, with shelter, or seeking to help us in our mission.
Most recently, we have been occupied helping some in our community in a new way, in order to root some folks who need assistance and establish them for success.
We’re now housing about 30 people in Kingston in our supportive housing program, providing them with their own bedroom as well as some shared amenities at an affordable rate. We’re grateful to the donors and partners who have helped make this growing and much needed program a reality.
We’re good at serving large amounts of food and goods to large numbers of agencies, and we’ve been doing it for years. Supportive housing takes a different skillset and approach, working with a small number of people with very specific needs. It’s less about managing a large harvest and more about cultivating a diverse garden. But the fruits of our labour are equally rewarding, and we’re proud to be growing this much needed program.
We thank you for your continued support as we continue to lean into some of the most pressing challenges our country is facing.
Travis Blackmore
Founder and CEO, Lionhearts Inc.
Kingston
Keeping It Fresh
We recently gathered with friends from Kingston Seniors, Loyalist Township, MPP Ted Hsu's office, and more to thank the Ontario Trillium Foundation for supporting our Fresh Food Market Pop-Ups. Be sure to pop in for soup, fresh fruit and vegetables, and other treats!
Help Us Keep on Trucking
We’re hiring Shelter Support Specialists to assist our emergency shelter on Cowdy St.
We’re also hiring for a Director of Fundraising who will work with donors, foundations, business partners, and governments to help keep our doors open and trucks on the road.
Check out lionhearts.ca/careers for the full job descriptions.
Ottawa
We're In the Community
Thank you to our friends at the Pinecrest-Queensway Community Health Centre, who recently honoured us with a Community Development award at their AGM!
Delivering Fear into Their Hearts
We recently redistributed a few Halloween costumes we held onto from last year to our community house partners. Over three pallets of spooky costumes and décor were redistributed to six of our community house partners ahead of the spooky season!
London and Head Office
Delivering Hope in London
We've just started doing pickups at the Amazon warehouse in the London area and we're already having a huge impact! Since we started working in London, we have collected over $189,000 in food and household goods for redistribution. That's over 13,000 kilograms of stuff (roughly the same weight as four trucks)!
It's Getting Cold Out There
We will be participating in Coldest Night of the Year again in 2025 in Kingston, Ottawa, and London.
Save the date – Sat. Feb. 22! More details to come.