Pelham Park Gardens

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Pelham Park Gardens

• Domestic Outreach in Toronto

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AGENDA

• The Place
• Whats happened so far
• 2Q05 Initial vision
• 3Q05 Basketball tournament
• 4Q05 Christmas dinner
• 1Q06 Attempt at breakfast club
• 3Q06 Neighbourhood BBQ
• The vision for the future

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Pelham Park Gardens This is a government-subsidiz
ed housing project. It was built 40 years ago
and has 455 units split between a 17 storey
apartment building and a few rows of
townhouses. Originally it was built for seniors
and some are still living there but in the 1980s
it was opened up to anyone needing government
housing.
The people living here are low-income families,
many of them single-parent usually led by women.
It is multi-cultural with a lot of Carribeans,
and Hispanics and other cultures as well. A lot
of them are in poverty cycles perpetuated by
substance abuse and sexual abuse.
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Name Cindy LaPage Age 33 Years Old Lived in
Pelham Park for 26 Years
Cindy lives in Pelham Park with her daughter
Keisha who is 7 years old. Cindy has worked for
Mega-City Self Storage for 3 years on and off.
Cindy is part of the Womens Group, Reading
Circle, and The Pelham Park Renewal Committee.
The reading Circle consists of teaching children
afterschool how to read, and help with homework.
Cindy was one of the Ladies that organized the
Festive Dinner which we supported.
Keisha came to live with Cindy three years ago
from the Childrens Aid Society. Keisha was
sexually and physically abused by mother and
mothers boyfriend. She is also Cindys first
cousin. Cindy is a single parent who finds it
difficult to make ends meet. She receives O.D.S.P
as her primary source of income.
When asked to describe Pelham Park in her own
words, she answered family oriented community.
Single parent families with many, many children.
Three families have 10 children. A safe community
compared to other housing projects. Although
there is a lot of drugs going around. Lots of
bullying other children, but it all starts from
within the home. If youre not taught at home you
will not know how to act or react. She said that
if there was something that she would like to see
changed in Pelham Park it was the communication
between the building and the townhouse
tenants. She plans on running for President of
the Pelham Park Tenants Association that
represents all the tenants.
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Name Terry LaPage. Age 24 years Lived in
Pelham Park for 24 years
Terry goes by the nickname Skrailly. He
lives in Pelham Park with his Mom, Dad, and two
sisters. He finished high school when he was 21.
He describes Pelham Park as a complex that
doesnt have no work for no people. A nice place
that doesnt have any trouble, the only trouble
there is the cops harassing the teenagers. There
used to be a lot more work for the teenagers to
do, but now its all gone. Theres no work. You
live in Pelham, you have no work. He works
part time for the City of Toronto as a crossing
guard. His salary on bi-weekly basis is 398.00.
If he had an opportunity to work somewhere he
would work at the ACC (Air Canada Centre). When
asked what he would like to see changed in Pelham
Park his response was clean-up the place, make
sure people throw their litter in the garbage,
more stuff to do for the teenagers, and get the
cops to stop harassing the teenagers
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Name Raymond Manohar. Age 18 years Lived in
Pelham Park for 12 years
Raymond goes by the nickname Pizza man. He
lives in Pelham Park with his Mom, Dad, and three
brothers. He just recently dropped out of high
school. He smokes weed on a daily basis. Weed
dont do nothing to you His reason for dropping
out was because he got kicked out for two years
in a row and this year he realizes school is not
for him cause, he knows hes not gonna pass His
last grade was 9. In describing Pelham Park he
says Its a good neighbourhood and a bad
neighbourhood. Its good because the people in
Pelham try to look out for each other. And the
people that dont live in this neighbourhood try
and come in to this area and run it.
The police harass us and illegally search us for
drugs when we dont got any. They try to beat us
up nuff times. People from the neighbourhood say
the Pelham kids are bad and they know nothing
bout us.
When asked what kind of people live in Pelham
Park he answered multicultural, and the people
in the building are losing their minds. Asked
what he would like to see changed in Pelham Park
he responded with we need a permanent ball
court, and a proper play ground with swings and
stuff .
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Initial Vision
A brother has his place of business across the
street from Pelham Park and has developed a
burden for these lost people.
Since the summer of 2005, a group of brothers
committed to get together to pray and plan on how
to help these people.
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Basketball Tournament September 2005
To break the ice, a basketball tournament was
organized complete with trophies, BBQ, and
separate younger and older leagues.
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Christmas Dinner 2005
The womens group of the apartment wanted to
organize a Christmas Dinner for the project.
Since we wanted to eventually run a breakfast
club to feed the children before going to school,
we volunteered to help out, in order to gain
experience and exposure.
Volunteers worked all day preparing the food.
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Volunteers for both Richmond hill and Weston road
contributed
Approximately 250 were served from the apartment
and town house complex
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There was an assortment of foods served from
turkeys to jerk chicken
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And many showed up in the evening to help serve
it and mingle with the guests
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Breakfast Club
After the festive dinner in December in 2005 we
wanted to start a breakfast meeting in the middle
of January in 2006. However, we were told by
government housing that construction to renovate
the building was going to commence shortly and
therefore we would have to put on hold any sort
of community work.
Meanwhile, a few of us felt that since we prayed
and sang gospel songs at the festive dinner we
were being prevented to start the breakfast club.
Some of the government housing employees said
we are not all Christian here and therefore we
didnt think that the renovation (renovation
started in June 06 ) was the real reason for us
not to continue but because we were overly
Christian.
We then decided through prayer that it was best
for us to wait on Gods leading and for God to
initiate the work and for us to join him in HIS
work.
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July 2006 Community Barbeque at mega city for
Pelham Park residents
Over 250 hamburger and hotdogs were served
Including a bake sale, face painting and helium
balloons for all to enjoy
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Future Endevours
First and foremost we would like to wait on the
Lord for His guidance and direction because
Except the LORD build the house, they labor in
vain that build it.
Since the barbeque we have had some inquiries as
to having a Bible study and so we got together
the following day on Sunday evening and we had a
small group discussion on Genesis 3. We discussed
the fall of mankind and Gods gracious dealing
with man despite his open rebellion against his
maker.
If God wills it, we would like to focus on
personal Bible studies and one on one contact
with the individuals of Pelham Park. Our prayer
is that eventually many will come to know Jesus
Christ as their Saviour.
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Sunday Bible Studies
We have been meeting every Sunday at 5
pm. Initially with adults but now more with the
younger group Ages range from 3 to Grade 10 Using
a finished room in Mega City Storage. Need more
volunteers to split up into age appropriate
groups.
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Are you your brothers keeper?
Some brothers have taken a personal interest in
individual boys and making a personal impact in
their lives. There is a huge vacuum of male role
models in this place and you could make a
tremendous difference for eternity