Annual Report 2009

Fernwood Neighborhood Resource Group Society

Annual Report 2009

Fernwood NRG’s latest housing project, Park Place, features solar hot water heating and edible landscaping. The six-unit complex opened its doors to families in September 2008.

New Beginnings, New Possibilities

I

T HAS BEEN ANOTHER BUSY

but rewarding year in Fernwood. The single biggest accomplishment of the Society in the last two years was the construction and completion of the Park Place affordable housing Project on Yukon Street. We broke ground in January of 2008, finished construction in the summer, and in September, the first families moved in. The project was built on-time and on-budget and we raised over $1 million from four levels of government and private foundations to complete the project. What was formerly a vacant lot now houses six families with children—over 20 people in all. It is located beside a park, and features solar hot water heating and an edible landscape—both of these features make the housing more affordable as well as more environmentally sustainable. Fernwood NRG has now completed ten 3-bedroom units of affordable housing in the past three years, providing affordable housing to nearly 40 people. Our work in affordable housing has been recognized in the past year by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In November 2008, Roberta Martell (our former Executive Director), Lenore Rankin (our Development Director), Paula DeBeck (our Treasurer) and Garde Colins (our contractor who has worked with us on both the Cornerstone Building and who oversaw construction of Park Place),

received an award on behalf of Fernwood NRG from CMHC in Ottawa for “Best Practices in Affordable Housing” for the work we did on the Cornerstone Building. This award is the second we have won for the Cornerstone Building. In 2007, we also received the President’s Award from the Victoria Hallmark Society for the Cornerstone restoration. In the last year, we also made the difficult decision to focus on providing care and support to families with children five and under. We transferred the operations of our Out-of-School Care Program at George Jay School to Kids Klub. We had run the program at George Jay for many, many years but it had always been a struggle for us. By contrast, Kids Klub is a non-profit that operates out-of-school care programs at schools across five school districts and is now successfully operating that program. Sadly, Roberta Martell, our Executive Director who worked so hard on behalf of the neighbourhood for five and half years gave her notice in the Spring of 2009. She felt she had achieved what she set out to achieve in Fernwood, and that it was time for her to consider her own future and to choose her next big adventure. (See p. 4 for a retrospective on Roberta’s time in Fernwood). Roberta’s departure, of course, led us to search for a new Executive Director. After a comprehensive process, we selected

Lee Herrin, our long time board member to take Roberta’s place. Lee was involved in the original hiring of Roberta and has worked side by side with her and the rest of the Board over the past six years. Although Lee and Roberta are very different people, we are lucky to have someone come forward to step into Roberta’s very big shoes who has already demonstrated such a longstanding commitment to this organization and to the neighbourhood. Lee started in August and has been focusing his attention internally to create a strong team with the capacity to move the organization into the next big project. Speaking of which, one of the things the

society is currently working on is another affordable housing project very similar to Park Place at 1768 Pembroke Street. We have submitted a rezoning proposal to City Hall and are awaiting feedback and the opportunity to go to a public hearing. If all goes well, we will be reporting back to the membership in the new year that we are beginning our fundraising efforts. Continuing to look forward, eight new directors were elected to the Board at our AGM in early December. We will begin the new year with a planning process in which we will first orient the Board to the organization, and then reach out to the broader neighbourhood by holding a forum similar to the one we held in 2007. We are also considering some other means to expand and enrich the neighbourhood dialogue, including conducting a survey of a random sample of neighbourhood residents as well as enhancing our website to support more social networking and dialogue on topics of interest and importance to the neighbourhood. Thank you for your ongoing support of Fernwood NRG. I’m looking forward to a successful 2010. Sincerely,

Caitlin Davies Chair, Board of Directors 2009 Annual Report

page 1