Beyond toys and turkeys
Street missions work to build relationships over the holidays
Though the Christmas season is a joyful time for many, it can be a rough time for others. Not only do the poor go without things like food and gifts that the middle and upper classes may take for granted, they also have needs that can’t be provided for by simply putting a turkey in their arms and wishing them a merry Christmas.
Yonge Street Mission emphasizes relationships during the holiday season, as well as meeting the physical needs of the homeless and street-involved youth in their community.
“Christmas is a time where many face the reality that family is not around,” says Jesse Sudirgo, Youth Program Coordinator at the Toronto organization. “Simply being there for the youth so they feel a sense of home and belonging is one of the huge needs they have.”
Christmas can be particularly challenging for many of the youth, alone at a time when many families are gathering, eating, giving and receiving presents and going to parties. Heavy emotions often rise to the surface.
And so the mission tries to bring joy back into the picture.
“The other year, we put on a Mickey Mouse cartoon for these hardcore youth coming in to our drop-in centre,” Sudirgo says, “and suddenly it was like they were kids again. We tend to provide activities like that because many of them have been robbed of their childhoods.”
One of the big challenges Yonge Street Mission faces is the drop in giving and volunteering after the Christmas season is over.
Sudirgo says, “I would like to see the church embrace the kind of generosity we see during the Christmas season as a part of the Christian mission throughout the whole year.
“I’d like us to constantly meet the needs of the street-involved youth and low-income people in a way that they can feel loved and not just be a project.”
Based in Victoria, B.C., The Mustard Seed also works to reach out to the hurting during the Christmas season.
“We describe our work as bringing hope to the whole person seven days a week,’” says Jackie Cox-Ziegler, director of administration at The Mustard Seed. “We accompany people on their journey and help out along the way; for many we become the loving family.”
Family-like relationships bring Christ to people in need, and encourage many to attend chapel services like those at The Mustard Seed, where members of the community play parts in the Nativity story and lead singing.
Inner City Youth Alive (ICYA), a mission in the north end of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has also shifted its perspective to emphasize community.
“We used to have people from outside the community come in, serve a meal and give gifts,” says executive director Kent Dueck, “but we learned that giving presents in this way often usurps the parents’ responsibility to provide.
“When we’d provide these kids presents, often you would see the dads just vacating because it’s embarrassing for them not to be able to do that for their kids."
“What we do now is give gifts based on relationships. Instead of having our youth line up at our events to receive presents, we visit them in their homes, talk, and then give them a present from ICYA. We still give out as many gifts as we did before, but it’s more intimate and based on relationship.”
ICYA puts on a few large events where more than half the community comes out to enjoy hayrides, play hockey, have a bonfire or a banquet. Since the majority of its youth do have a home, the mission does not put on an event on Christmas Day itself, because they want to give that day to families.
“Many of our staff live in the neighbourhood, so that’s where kids who don’t have families will go—to spend Christmas with the staff they’ve really connected with.”
Kevin Nyquest, teens coordinator at ICYA, experienced this relationship building firsthand when he was a teenager and going through hard times.
“I connected with one of the staff right away because he was a skateboarder like I was,” Nyquest says. “When I was 16, he and his wife invited me over to their house on Christmas. That really impacted me. I actually had one Christmas that had a purpose to it.
“It meant a lot to me that they basically called me their own child, accepted me for who I was, and didn’t care about my background or what I had done years before. I kept coming and coming after that.”
Kevin says he returned to these people because, in addition to meeting his need for food and desire for a gift, it meant the world to him that someone noticed him and genuinely cared about his future.
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