Oct
24
2021
Tax season is almost upon us. We appreciate your trust during the pandemic, and we will continue to keep the pace in responding to appointment requests for tax filing both virtually and face to face. We haven't stopped providing the year-round service and brought over 2,5 million to the community in accessed benefits. Currently we are busy recruiting a team of new volunteers to support our existing team. We are recruiting immigrant and refugee individuals with previous financial and accounting backgrounds (see the call to join the training) to make sure as many low-modest income individuals can take advantage of our free financial empowerment service.
Extreme resilience in the face of abuse, trauma, loss, death, exclusion due to disability, poverty and health challenges - this is what we need to remember on the commemoration of the World Homelessness Day. There is a strong correlation between mental health issues and homelessness. We cannot tell which came first, but once both factors are present they form a vicious cycle which makes interventions/supports challenging and complex, usually violent and criminalizing in itself.
Are you interested in volunteering or donating to our 
The Social Development Centre Waterloo Region is providing June 21st, National Indigenous Peoples Day, and September 30th, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, as holidays with pay for staff. The Board voted for this unanimously, for three reasons:
Building Covid-19 awareness is an ongoing challenge for many groups. Encouraging reflection about how we have adapted and changed to live with our new realities during a global pandemic here in our own neighbourhoods and communities is the purpose of the COVID Safe Pop Up Living Rooms. Social Development Centre has brough together two initiatives the Kitchener's Festival of Neighbourhoods and Covid Safe Pubilc Spaces to set up a site-specific pop up gatherings for a few hours within neighbourhoods that do not experience safety in many regards. We will practice the evolving COVID safe protocols and everyone can be as confident as possible that they are doing what they can to be protected from transmission, while unpacking deeper levels of what safety means to each of us. 
As restrictions begin to lift, we want to get back to prioritizing connection by actively building strong and vibrant neighbourhoods. And to help renew enthusiasm, 
WRCLS, in 
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