Letter Prepared for the Catholic Register in October '08...

There are so many different ways to make a difference to the world, and to enact Christ's call to us to love our neighbour as ourselves. It is both exciting to know that gifts of money or time can do so much to change things, to help. It can also be daunting to make a decision about where to give.

In Canada there are 160,000 charities and non-profits. Close to 32,000 of these are places of worship and another 45,000 are social service organizations that do everything from support seniors, provide community health care, teach new Canadians English, or protect children from harm. Many do research, some are advocates for change, and all involve ordinary people, as donors and as volunteers, to get the job done.

A small number of Canadian charities are large - with budgets over $1M a year. A handful have annual budgets over $10M and these tend to be the very well known agencies like the YMCA or Greenpeace or United Way, or the major disease organizations like the Cancer Society or Heart and Stroke. At the other end of the scale countless organizations, like the St. Felix Centre, in downtown Toronto, where I am Executive Director, are small "shoestring" operations that have modest budgets and work with relatively small numbers of people.

Every single one of these organizations does good and important work. So in the end maybe it doesn't matter that much whether a donor supports a large, sophisticated organization that seeks a cure, or works with thousands, or a small place that cares for one individual at a time. All gifts help and all make a difference.

At a place like St. Felix Centre, we do things on a small scale, in a pretty classic version of grassroots caring. Started by an order of Sisters (the Felicians) in the 1930's, the Centre has worked with children in this troubled inner city neighbourhood, for a long time. Always ready to hand a sandwich out the back door, the Sisters realised, in the 1990's that they needed to do more, and do it more formally, and so a dining room and larger kitchen were built, and our Lunch Ministry established. We provide a daily hot lunch to 100 homeless people. We also run a breakfast program and after school care for 50 children who have very little in their lives. Incredibly we do this through the contributions of 60 university student volunteers. In fact at St. Felix Centre we have only 5 staff and 400 volunteers. We don't receive any government money and we make a small difference, every day, in the lives of maybe 100 or 150 people and we are very very proud to do so.

We are not, and will never be, a complex or sophisticated operation that can provide care to thousands, or change public understanding of a major issue, or find a cure for a disease. That is not our place in the continuum of contribution that is so important to Canada and the world. But as in all things, each one of us who works for good and change, whether on a small scale or large, and each one of us who makes a gift, whether it's $50 or $50,000, are doing our part, and we are part of one of the best kept secrets in Canada; a remarkable mosaic of faith, love, caring and support that changes lives and feeds hope.