WATERLOO REGION COMMUNITY RALLIES FOR WILLOW RIVER CENTRE
Downtown Kitchener’s Willow River Centre (WRC), an Indigiqueer led community center, and the brick-and-mortar base for Land Back Camp, was recently in imminent danger of closing.
After receiving less grant money than anticipated, the WRC’s budget could no longer sustain their rent. For an organization whose mission is largely to provide a safe space for marginalized people, this issue presented a very formidable challenge.
In an effort mainly organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, a banquet and fundraiser were organized in a short time.
“We had nothing to do with it, either…We just gave them our social media passwords, and they ran with it,” Bangishimo, co-founder of the centre said.
With 200 tickets sold, 12 community sponsors, 86 donated raffle items, a meal provided by nine local businesses and plenty of volunteers, the fundraiser brought in over $27,000. The WRC was able to stay alive.
“It was the most on point organizing I’ve ever seen,” Amy Smoke, the WRC’s other co-founder, said.
The fundraiser was a triumph for the centre and the region at large.
A large portion of the WRC’s funding comes from the Upstream Fund, a fund created in 2022 to support community organizations and build a more harmonious and happier Waterloo Region.
Upstream draws its money from the regional budget and aims to prioritize groups that service underrepresented, racialized, or marginalized people.
Initially, the Community Edition reported in the June issue that the WRC’s funding issues were caused by Upstream extending their eligibility beyond Indigenous and Black organizations. With a greater pool of people to compete for funds, less money overall could be distributed to each individual group.
This however, has proven to be untrue. While many of Upstream’s recipients are and have been Black and Indigenous, they have never been exclusively so. Furthermore, Upstream is not currently providing funds to more people than before. Their records consistently show cohorts numbering between 30 and 40 members each year since they started.
According to the WRC’s grant writer, Robyn Schwarz, hard times are coming for nonprofits across the board. With a conservative government, whose mandate is to cut taxes, money for publicly funded services is drying up.
“[The majority of Regional Council] wants a five per cent increase, but that’s actually a cut, because in order to keep current services where they are, we need about 12 per cent,” Schwarz said.
Schwarz said nonprofits are particularly affected because Ontario’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government currently prioritize business support over social services.
With only a five per cent tax increase (less than half of what Schwarz predicts is needed) nonprofits are the first to lose funding. Upstream gets cut, and by extension, so does the WRC.
“Basically, the thing to blame is that we’re under a government right now that doesn’t want to tax things and doesn’t want to fund the nonprofit sector,” Schwarz said.
Regardless of government funding, a substantial portion of the community wants to support organizations like the WRC, and that support was felt by Smoke and Bangishimo.
“We were wrapped in care, and it was really lovely to be held by other people,” Smoke said.
Despite the economic instability and the challenges of working as a nonprofit under a conservative government, the WRC is committed to keep working.
“We’re still grant writing, still getting funds to continue doing what we need to do. Regardless of what happens in a brick and mortar, Land Back is a movement. We’re not going anywhere,” Smoke said.
#AmySmoke #Bangishimo #BangishimoJohnston #blackAndIndigenous #ChristoffLeRoux #DowntownKitchener #Indigiqueer #landbackCamp #localActivism #PalestinianYouthMovement #RobynSchwarz #upstream #willowRiverCenter #wrc #ZackMason
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