Since 2013, 105 Gibson Centre has been serving the community with diversified services with aims to address physical, emotional and physical needs. The COVID-19 pandemic response forced us to close in mid-March and has since greatly impacted the Centre’s operations and finances. We are currently providing only two essential services by appointments through Food Bank and Counselling.
To maintain quality services and facilities requires a high operational budget; a steady revenue is crucial in maintaining operations. There is now no revenue from class fees, facility rental and Thrift Store. The pandemic is affecting the Centre’s two annual major fundraising events: the “Tree Planting Day” in May has been cancelled and the October Walkathon is uncertain at this time. These four major revenue streams have been greatly reduced during this pandemic while expenses such as insurance, property tax, utilities, maintenance and cleaning still need to be paid, thus possibly bringing the Centre’s finances into deficit. How is the Centre facing this operational and financial crisis?
While the pandemic is severely impacting our operations and causing us to broaden revenue sources and reduce expenditures, it also inspires us to be innovative in continuously serving the community. For example, we cannot collect food donations or clients cannot come to the Centre to pick up food. We thus turned to online fundraising, purchasing food from stores and arranging volunteers to deliver food to our clients’ doors. Also, we are launching online classes to meet different needs. Counselling is now being delivered through phone or online sessions.
105 Gibson Centre is thankful for the unwavering support from the members of the Toronto Christian Community Church, and expresses our appreciation to our users, volunteers and staff for their efforts. We hope to continue a mutual trusting relationship. May each visitor to the Centre receive it as a second home. We encourage you to embrace each opportunity to contribute to the Centre so that more people will find this as their second home.
