(The Mustard Seed)

By Sheldon Spackman

Helping Those In Need

Mustard Seed achieves its goals through Seeds Of Hope Gala

Oct 30, 2019 | 7:10 PM

The Mustard Seed in Red Deer is celebrating the success of this year’s second Annual Seeds of Hope Gala, held at the Cambridge Hotel on Saturday in support of the less fortunate in our community.

Byron Bradley, managing director for the Mustard Seed in Red Deer, says they were able to achieve all of their goals set out in what he describes as their primary fundraiser.

“With that, we are able to make some improvements and enhancements here at The Mustard Seed,” explains Bradley. “And we’re very happy with the turnout. We had over 400 people that came to the gala, so just really thrilled with the support from the community.”

Bradley says funds raised will now enable them to purchase a new commercial range and commercial floor mixer for their kitchen.

“That’s really going to help our meals, and also it’s really going to help our school lunch program,” says Bradley. “When we have enough volunteers, we make all of our snacks from scratch for the school lunch program. So that’s going to just raise the efficiency and amount of baking that we’re able to do in our kitchen.”

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In addition, Bradley says money raised will also go towards supporting upgrades underway at The Mustard Seed.

“We’re able to do some renovations to the entrance of our shelter which will raise the level of safety and accessibility for our shelter,” says Bradley. “Then our wellness centre, that’s operational now. We continue looking for health professionals to partner with. Now we’re able to bolster that a little bit as well to just get some more equipment.”

Bradley says the new wellness centre offers services such as addictions counselling, group therapy, and a chiropractor starting in November.

“One of the things we’re really trying to get the word out for is we’re looking for health professionals. We’re looking for doctors, nurses, dentists currently that would be interested in partnering with us.

“It’s really important for us to have specific items that we’re really needing in our operation, but then just supports that we raise go into daily operations for everything that we do as well.”

Bradley estimates about 1,000 people receive some kind of support through The Mustard Seed each week.

“If you compare last summer and fall to this summer and fall, most of our numbers in our meals and our shelter have doubled or more than doubled in our shelter and in some cases, almost tripled,” reveals Bradley. “We feel it’s a combination of things, we have done a decent amount of enhancements to the shelter.

“We also are seeing some new faces in our shelter that appear to be new to our community,” he points out. “We’re seeing people that are wanting to move away from substance use, they’re wanting to turn their lives around, and so it appears that more people are choosing our shelter because of the sober and safe environment that we have.”

Bradley says they can’t thank the community enough for the support they’ve received.

“It’s important to make the place comfortable for people for the short periods of time that they’re here, to restore their dignity, and to give them hope again,” explains Bradley. “So that’s what we’ve really been working hard at, is just building relationships with everyone that comes, working at restoring their dignity, and to create an atmosphere where people can build hope again for their future.”