Another inspiring Empty Bowls event

Today we witnessed a true community coming together for others; those at risk of homelessness in Milton. The soup was wonderful, the creativity of the bowls stunning and the sense of community inspiring.

Watch this terrific interview with Donna Danielli, Executive Director, Milton Transitional Housing. Danielli talks about the great work of Milton Transitional Housing, this 2015 Empty Bowls event and the exciting news about a new Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to enable growth from 3-10 units.

Photographed one of the volunteer servers, Sarah Quart.

Watch for the next blog post formerly thanking all the sponsors by name as well as news of the funds raised from this excellent annual Empty Bowls event.

Milton Transitional Housing latest tenant of Habitat for Humanity

It is a wonderful new chapter for both Habitat for Humanity Halton and Milton Transitional Housing as they partner together with a shared base in Milton.

Wednesday the Milton Transitional Housing Board and volunteers were invited to a Team Gathering at the Habitat for Humanity Restore location at 25 Brown Street in Milton. This is the site of the Old Post office opposite the Milton Town Hall. Milton Transitional Housing has two offices and a Boardroom within the Milton Restore.

Mirela Vukosa Giannidis, Director of People and Community Engagement at Habitat for Humanity in Halton desribed it as "a wonderful beginning to an exciting journey". She reminded us that Milton has the lowest opportunity for affordable rentals in Ontario. She added that they are "thrilled to be partnering and working together with Milton Transitional Housing". Habitat for Humanity started back in 1999 and have 3 home ownership properties already this year alone. They now have 20 low income hard working families through home ownership with a longer term goal of 75.

Donna Danielli, Executive Director for Milton Transitional Housing updated the group on how MTH is evolving and meeting the needs of its three clients. The volunteer ambassador training sessions were warmly greeted as a tremendous to raise awareness. Many are surprised by the level of need in Milton.

Come and visit the Milton Restore location to see for yourself.

Fabulous turnout for 4th Empty Bowls

There was a fabulous turnout for today's Empty Bowls event run by Milton Transitional Housing (MTH) in the MinMaxx Hall of Milton Centre for the Arts. The bowls were stunning and the soups delicious.

New MTH Executive Director, Donna Danielli, expressed her gratitude to the volunteers, sponsor but mostly to the those of the members of the community who came out to support this important fourth Empty Bowls annual event. Important, because with the original Ontario Trillium Foundation funding having come to an end the organisation is ever more reliant of the Empty Bowls or other fundraising events like Coldest Night of the Year to enable MTH to meet its commitment to clients in need and achieve its objectives.

We were pleased to see Ted Chudleigh, Indira Naidoo-Harris and other local politicians and councilors again supporting this event helping our own community. There were several members of the media present, including the Milton Villager and Milton Champion so look out for coverage over the coming weeks.

It was announced that last month's Coldest Night of the Year event raised $43,000 which will result in income to MTH of around $33,000. I will share the outcome of this Empty Bowls event as soon as possible. The MTH Board will soon be preparing their next grant submission to help MTH continue to grow. The organisation has expanded its horizons with the intent to 3 more units through 2014 and gradually increase to 13 units in the next 5 years. This is amazing given where we were in 2008.

For those of us who have been there from the start and the 1st Empty Bowls is a truly thrilling to see how the event has grown and the organisation prospered to become and establish part of the Milton community landscape. The first client is graduating from the prgram meaning we will soon be able to help a new client or family.

There are so many sponsors and volunteers to thank as well as the cooperation of the Milton Centre for the Arts staff. The Event Sponsor was Prosperity One, Empty Bowls Host Sponsor and our Platinum Sponsor is MinMaxx. Simply Creative again donated the bowls which had been hand decorated by volunteers. We thank our Silver sponsor U-Need Storage, Ads at Work Media Sponsor and all the other local businesses who donated soup or food. See the Milton Transitional Housing website or Facebook page.