Vaughan's small charities struggle amid rising demand, falling donations due to COVID-19

#LoveLocal: 'And we're less and less and less able, especially now that we've had a year of this behind us'

Yorkregion.com
March 17, 2021
Dina Al-Shibeeb

COVID-19 has revealed the difference between big and small businesses. But this is also the case for the non-profit world.

“Corporate giving continues to be steadfast in Vaughan for strong social causes that directly impact the community,” said Brian Shifman, president and CEO of the Vaughan Chamber of Commerce.

Citing the “spirit of giving and generosity” in Vaughan, Shifman added, "there's still a lot of giving happening in places such as the Cortelluci Vaughan Hospital, Hospice Vaughan and the YMCA."

But for those who aren’t as well known, the impact is drastic.

“We're just not at that level, and that has a huge impact on us,” Sylvia McClease, president of the non-profit Maple Lions Club, which offers a myriad of services from collecting e-waste locally to donating eyeglasses and hearing aids to those in need abroad.

“The community is still asking for all of those organizations out there for their services,” McClease said. “We're less and less and less able, especially now that we've had a year of this behind us.

“And we're looking at organizations that are at this point, struggling to even stay alive and continue to function,” she added without mentioning names.

Maple Lions Club has a program whereby donated eyeglasses from the community are shipped to inmates in Correction Canada facilities in Calgary, who work to sanitize, place prescriptions to finally package them.

By the end of 2020, the club collected 3,300 pairs of eyeglasses.

“Before that, I would say we could have easily doubled or tripled that,” she said.

Her husband, Dale McClease, a current member and chair of the e-waste program, said his program depended on volunteers especially high school students, but due to COVID-19, the disruption for his seven-year-old program is huge.

“We're doing some business pickups, but they're minor in nature,” he said.

His wife, the president, said whenever they used to do e-waste events, they would have “really large shipping containers, like 40 feet. That's what we're bringing with us.”

For Dale, to compensate for this, he is looking for “huge corporate sponsors.”

“We don't usually go out looking for money, we're out looking for businesses that are throwing away their e-waste. So we can participate in the provincial recycle program and get paid to do it.”

The e-waste program also refurbished workable computers or old stereos to give it away to the needy in the community.

Despite the drastic impact because of COVID-19, the club hasn’t “stopped functioning,” said the president.

“I'm still answering the phone, and we're still trying to offer a system for the community. Because sometimes the systems are physical, they're not financial. Not everything is monetary.”

Despite the resilience, there is an issue amid an uptick in the demand for its “multi-spectrum” services.

“The problem with COVID is as those requests are increasing, the resources for us to either fundraise or obtain whatever is necessary to provide for those requests, increased,” said Sylvia. “So it's like a scale it goes up on one and goes down on the other, which makes it more difficult.”

The club isn’t only feeling the burn.

“The demand for food and other assistance has substantially increased,” Aslam Daud, chair of a Vaughan-based food bank Humanity First said.

With this demand increase, Humanity First is seeing a “substantial decrease in donations since the COVID-19” pandemic from businesses and people.

“There are people who continue to donate, but many have also cut down, especially those who have lost jobs or whose business has negatively suffered,” Daud said. “Specially our large donors who have cut down on the donations.”

“COVID has seriously impacted many charities.”

“According to one report, two-thirds of charities in Canada has revenues dropped by one-third or more,” he said. “We are seeing the same trend here.”