A grant from the Manitoba Real Estate Association Shelter Foundation will help foster a love of reading and build English literacy skills for newcomer adults and children. The Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba (IRCOM) was one of 11 grant funding recipients in 2016. This was the largest number of grants awarded in a single year so far. IRCOM will develop a sunny space into a library at its new Isabel Street location.
Another recipient, L’Arche Winnipeg, creates homes and builds communities where people with developmental disabilities and their assistants can live and work together. A gift from the MREA Shelter Foundation will provide new flooring and carpets in five of the L’Arche homes.
“When we can help the less fortunate members of our communities by supplying bed bug covers, by providing a safe and warm place to sleep on a cold winter night, or a refuge for women and children to escape violence, we all win,” says MREA Shelter Foundation chair Brian Canart.
The grants, totaling more than $42,000, were also given to Esther House, Habitat for Humanity, Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, New Directions, Nova House, Resource Assistance for Youth, Samaritan House Ministries (Safe and Warm Shelter), Siloam Mission and the South Central Committee on Family Violence.
The WinnipegRealtors Gimme Shelter fundraising social raises approximately $40,000 a year for the foundation. Brandon area Realtors raised $9,000 at the Shelter Classic Golf Tournament in the summer and $14,000 in the two years prior.
Since 2008 the foundation has raised nearly $700,000 for shelter organizations across Manitoba.
