Weekly Gatherings
Monday
1:00pm - 3:00pm Street Outreach
Thursday
2:30pm-4:00pm Bible Study Discussion
5:00pm - 9:00pm Community Meal Dinner
Friday
11:00am - 3:00pm Community Care
12:00pm-2:00pm Women’s Group (starting Mid Nov. 2024)
Tuesday
11:00am - 3:00pm Community Meal Lunch
Sunday
5:00pm - 7:00pm Church Service
Wednesday
12:00pm - 3:00pm Art Studio
12:30pm - 2:30pm Street Outreach
Art Studio
We believe that everyone carries gifts and talents that should be allowed, called forth, and encouraged to flourish. Our arts program is a safe space for our community to engage in a variety of projects that strive to recognize the needs of every person as a whole. Art provides a means for self-expression, self-realization and human connection, and plays an important role in the life of our community.
Street Outreach
We go out into the streets to build relationships and healthy community. We walk the streets, mostly in the downtown east side, offering bottles of water, socks, hats, snacks and an invitation to stop by Sanctuary for a meal or a chat. Our team also offers support to people who are connected to our community, but we don’t consider this outreach work—it’s friends helping friends. This work includes accompanying people to appointments; helping people to find housing, move, clean their apartment; or visiting people in the hospital or in jail.
Community Meals
The main purpose of community meals is to offer space to build life-giving relationships, and some respite from the harsh realities of poverty and homelessness. We offer meals prepared by a crew from our community, medical care, shower facilities, personal care items, clothing, computers, phones, wifi, books, and pastoral care. In a given week, we see an average of 300 people between our two community meals.
We honour birthdays and use holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas to celebrate with extra-special menus. Our meals are also a time time to gather together to grieve and express pain caused by the losses, danger, and injustices of life on the street. Everyone is encouraged to care well for one another. We’d love it if you’d join us sometime.
Health Clinic
Sanctuary’s clinic strives to offer care in the context of a welcoming, non-judgemental community. Our clinic staff are deeply aware of and attentive to the particular challenges and resiliencies of folks in the street community, and they are able to go above-and-beyond and come up with creative, collaborative solutions to help people keep up treatment protocols and make appointments.
We started our Health Clinic in 2001 after a few years of offering healthcare on the streets. Today, operating with three registered nurses, Sanctuary’s clinic has an average of 250 active patients and 800 unique visits a year. We are also very fortunate to have a partnership with Inner City Health Associates, who provide a doctor on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work in our clinic during community meals.
Sunday Service
Sanctuary is a Christian community, but our Sunday service contains a wide spectrum of believers and beliefs. Our unity is in our shared faith in Christ as expressed through love and justice for the poor. We try to structure our services to be responsive to the needs of the community—the order of songs is not planned in advance; no one is designated to read scripture or to give thanks for the communion elements; everyone is welcome to serve the community in this way. A rotating roster of people teach on Sundays: Greg Paul, Rachel Tulloch, Gil Clelland, and Janice Towndrow. Everyone is welcome. Sunday Service: 5pm-7pm