{"id":17790,"date":"2017-07-13T11:18:57","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T15:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17790"},"modified":"2017-07-13T11:18:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T15:18:57","slug":"welcoming-arms-expands-embrace-setting-a-place-for-welcome-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/welcoming-arms-expands-embrace-setting-a-place-for-welcome-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcoming Arms expands embrace setting a place for Welcome Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a non-profit charity extending its embrace to people in need across our community, the name Welcoming Arms is evocative of exactly what they do \u2013 but going forward, they have expanded their embrace much wider.
\nFounded in 2006 through the efforts of six community churches, the volunteers of Welcoming Arms pool their resources \u2013 and the donations of kind local partners \u2013 to meet the needs of low income families in Town and provide them with financial assistance and advice to make ends meet.
\nAlso helping to make ends meet is Welcome Table, the volunteer-run program at Trinity Anglican Church, which provides a weekly nutritious hot meal for Aurorans struggling with financial hardship.
\nFor years, the two organizations have been united by ideals but separated by a parking lot \u2013 Welcoming Arms operates out of Trinity\u2019s Rectory \u2013 but now they have joined forces under the umbrella of Welcoming Arms to meet the growing needs of struggling Aurorans.
\n\u201cWelcome Table is a highly successful program on its own, but it is difficult to raise money to sustain the program because it was within a church setting; people were uncomfortable donating to a church,\u201d says Julie Cruickshank of Welcoming Arms. \u201cSo, moving it to Welcoming Arms allows it to be part of a charitable organization and people can get a tax receipt from Welcoming Arms instead of a church. That was part [of why we united], but the other part of it is there is such synchronicity between what both of us do that it as a natural fit.\u201d
\nWelcome Table leader Joy Marshall echoes this statement, adding there is an added bonus in joining Welcoming Arms \u2013 Ms. Cruickshank\u2019s role as a paid oversight director.
\n\u201cFor me, it makes sense when you get this big,\u201d says Ms. Marshall. \u201cWelcome Table is 14 years old and, to me, it is time to roll it in to a more streamlined organization with set policy, governance, and a Board of Directors \u2013 and really in more of the community. At Welcoming Arms, it is six churches instead of one.\u201d
\nAccording to Ms. Marshall, the day to day operations of Welcome Table will not be impacted. The major impact will be behind the scenes. They will now report to a Board of Directors who are able to give \u201cbetter advice than just one person making it up on the fly,\u201d she says, with Ms. Cruickshank adding it will help them better serve the low-income and disadvantaged in Aurora by better connecting those who come to Welcome Table with the community referrals Welcoming Arms can offer.
\n\u201cWelcome Table has been working off a shoestring budget for so many years and it would be so nice to expand their budget,\u201d says Ms. Cruickshank. \u201cThey do a phenomenal job with the budget they have, but we can help provide more nutritious food and greater quantities of it.\u201d
\nAnd this expansion and connectivity is needed now more than ever.
\nAccording to Ms. Marshall, there once was a time when Welcome Table would serve between 12 and 15 local children with their families at one sitting. At their most recent meal, however, out of 100 guests there were 27 children.
\n\u201cIt is huge,\u201d says Ms. Marshall. \u201c[On Wednesday] a mum arrived and she said she is saving a place because she has a friend coming and several of her friends arrived and all together they had eight children between them.\u201d
\nYouth might be an exploding demographic at Welcome Table, but the same can\u2019t be said of Welcoming Arms; on the contrary, over at the Rectory, seniors are the fastest growing demographic, according to Ms. Cruickshank, particularly those who are depending on ODSP to make ends meet.
\nWith this new partnership, there will be more resources to go around and this fall there will be even more resources to go around as Welcoming Arms has been selected as one of 20 community organizations to share in the proceeds from this year\u2019s Wild, Wild West Hoedown, hosted by Magna International.
\nProceeds will go to help keeping the doors open at Welcome Table while Welcome Arms will use their allocation of the pie slice to help support Martha\u2019s Table, the meal program run out of St. Andrew\u2019s Presbyterian Church, which came under the Welcoming Arms umbrella as well last year.
\n\u201cAs a small charity, this is a big deal,\u201d says Ms. Cruikshank of being selected for Hoedown. \u201cThis is a big chunk of money for us to be running our programs and we love the idea of communities helping community. That is what we want to foster: the whole concept of being able to be supported by our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a non-profit charity extending its embrace to people in need across our community, the name Welcoming Arms is evocative of exactly what they do \u2013 but going forward, they have expanded their embrace much wider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4CW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-14 15:39:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/2017-07-13-03.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}