Imagine living in Halifax and not having enough to eat. Or going to sleep at night with your belly rumbling, and wondering if you even care to wake up to live another day. For our neighbours in need, Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is a true lifeline.
Souls Harbour serves over 50,000 hot, nutritious meals every year to an average of 150 men, women and children each day. They rescue people from poverty, addiction and despair, by offering emergency help, such as food and clothing, life-changing programs, and the message of the Gospel.
Souls Harbour are also social media experts of a sort, having used Facebook and Twitter to build their organization by, not once but TWICE winning the Aviva Community Fund Grand Prize of $100,000! Michelle Porter, CEO, has even gone on to mentor others vying to win social media voting competitions.
Michelle pulled out all the stops on social media to bring out the votes, including:
• Starting a Facebook group to build a community feeling and encourage daily voting;
• Compiling a Twitter list of people to engage with daily as a reminder to vote;
• Using a combination of tweets, @ replies and direct private messages to spread the word;
• Sharing compelling, branded graphics;
• Conducting daily countdowns with vote count updates.
Last October Souls Harbour opened a 17,000-square-foot thrift store – Mission Mart – in Bayers Lake in October 2018. They train people in jobs like stockroom management, janitorial work, customer service, merchandising and as cashiers. Plus there’s a cafe to train people in food services. Employees are recruited from among the people currently being served by the mission, and volunteers are ALWAYS needed and welcome!
We’re so pleased that Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is back for their second year as Lunch Sponsor. If you’d like to support Souls Harbour, you can make a donation here: https://www.shrm.ca/index.php/donate
