Our Story

OUR STORY

Some of life’s most successful people have been born of the most unfortunate of circumstances.

Six years ago, H.E.A.R.T.S (Helping Everyone Access Resources Through Support) began with the founder, Teresa Rocque providing services out of her garage and home. Facebook group pages were utilized as a place where people could post their needs and those who could provide a donation, posted what they were able to assist with. The participants in the group page grew to over 4,000! Over the years, the organization has seen an increase in the number of people in need due to recent job loss, low wages for those who are able to find and keep employment and making over the income threshold to quality for help from local agencies that provide a a similar service to H.E.A.R.T.S. 
Teresa helped to organize groups of people who helped collect, sort, and deliver donated items for distribution to families. As a result, people in Edmonton were able to find a variety of ways to come together as a community to help others. 
Overtime the systemic impact has been the elimination of barriers to low-income families, the working poor, and refugees receiving assistance in meeting their basic needs for food, clothing, furniture, and household items. During this economic downturn in Edmonton, it is important to H.E.A.R.T.S. that families have a place to go to for help without being turned away because of not meeting the strict financial and family criteria set by the majority of agencies in the city. H.E.A.R.T.S’s model makes their services available outside of daytime working hours in order to accommodate those who are working at that time. Not many agencies in Edmonton are able to provide hours of service during evenings or weekends. 
By offering barrier free services, we have been able to provide assistance to over 11,000 persons in 2018. 

Individuals and families who are the working poor and those in emergency situations were able to access services without having to meet income, employment, and family status criteria which often creates barriers to accessing much needed resources for those who are not in the inner city or living homeless on the streets. 
Service users were also encouraged, but not required to volunteer. By doing so they are able to help develop community building, increase their skills, and help keep a free service available to the public. 

H.E.A.R.T.S.  offered group tours and/or group volunteer experiences to organizations to learn about the work we do and the needs of the working poor here in Edmonton: Cornerstone Child Development Centre, Friday Night Crew, Centre for Spiritual Living, Action for Healthy Communities Newcomer Impact leadership group, local faith groups looking to volunteer in the community,  before the closure of the H.E.A.R.T.S centre in December 2018 we were in discussions with Community Service Learning (CSL) at the University of Alberta to arrange for students to do their placements with us. We were also working towards establishing formal student volunteer work experience placements with a local Indigenous organization. 

H.E.A.R.T.S has many plans for the future of our centre. With help from the community , dedicated donors and volunteers we believe we can get our doors open again and begin to start helping the community that desperately needs it once again. 
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