Mayor Yvonne Hamlin recently received a stack of 16 letters all containing pleas for her to take further action on homelessness in Collingwood.
What makes the letters unique, is they all came from nine- to 12-year-old girls.
The First Collingwood Girl Guides recently had a series of guest speakers come speak to their group, which included a volunteer with the Mobile Soup Kitchen effort in Collingwood. The volunteer spoke to the girls about the homelessness situation in Collingwood. As part of their 'My Voice' badge, the girls each decided on which cause they wanted to take action. Out of the 27 girls in the group, 16 chose homelessness as their issue and wrote letters to the Collingwood mayor.
“I’m so appreciative of them writing to me,” Hamlin told CollingwoodToday. “It’s really important that they stepped up to make their concerns known.”
“I was so surprised. Mayors rarely get a lot of letters on one topic. Some people in the community have written me on homelessness, but I don’t think I’ve had 16 people write at once before,” she said.
One of the letters read as follows:
“Dear Mayor Hamlin: I’m Emily from the First Collingwood Guides! I’m very concerned about all of the homeless people in Collingwood right now! I mean, it is the winter time so they’re probably really cold. Also, the homeless people have nowhere to throw their garbage so it’s getting really dirty and I wouldn’t want to be near so much garbage every day, and I don’t think you would either. So to fix these problems, maybe we could open up a homeless shelter that is open 24/7 so people don’t have to spend all night and day in the cold weather. Maybe we could also get more garbage disposals for people to throw their trash in. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter. I really hope we can solve this problem.
Sincerely, Emily.”
The letter-writing exercise is part of a series of steps the girls have taken toward earning their badge. Another exercise earlier this year saw the troop writing and performing soapbox speeches to practise advocating. To prepare, the girls heard from Collingwood’s town crier, Ken Templeman, on public speaking.
“We went downtown and they stood on milk crates to do their speeches,” said Jessica Maitland, one of the troop’s leaders. “The program is designed to give them choice on what they want to do/say.”
Maitland says other aspects of the badge include taking action in their community. To earn that portion, the girls have volunteered with the Georgian Triangle Humane Society, performed free concerts for seniors and put together care packages for new mothers at the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital.
“We’ve been busy little bees this year,” she said. “We’ve been focusing on advocacy and service this year ... This is an issue that affects them in their own town.”
Another one of the letters to the mayor read:
“Dear Mayor Hamlin: My name is Hayden and I have a concern to talk about: homeless people. They have no homes, no easy accessibility to water or food and don’t have a safe environment to sleep in. I was thinking the Town of Collingwood should start chatting about using some of the money that the town has to construct a building/apartment with a kitchen/laundry facility for free. Thank you for reading my letter and I hope I have helped encourage paying attention to homeless people.
Sincerely, Hayden.”
“I had heard about homelessness before, but (the volunteer) explained it more. She explained it’s a really big problem,” Hayden Baldry, 11, told CollingwoodToday this week. “It made me feel sad and bad for the people, so I just wanted to write a letter so maybe they can consider helping them.”
From her letter, Baldry says she hopes the mayor can take more action to help some of the people experiencing homelessness in Collingwood.
“I really felt bad for them,” said Emily Shuell, 10. “It’s always so cold in the winter. I wanted to get them a warm place to stay, hats, mitts and gloves.”
“We wrote the letters to try to get more stuff for them,” she said.
Both Baldry and Shuell say it upsets them to know there are people in their community who don’t have a home.
“I think that everyone deserves a home,” said Shuell.
When reached this week, Hamlin said she has drafted a letter to send to the troop and is also making plans to go to a meeting in-person to speak with them.
“I’m writing back now, thanking them, and saying that I’m working on a solution,” Hamlin said. “There is a possible project coming forward that is going to help with this issue, and I’m hoping there will be more to say to the public on it in May.”
Hamlin noted that some of the letters she received contained solutions, which she will be passing along to town staff, such as washrooms and garbage bins for people living outdoors.
“Some of them are really good,” she said. “I’m really impressed that they’re thinking about the problems in our community, because we all have to care to make changes. Here are some girls who already care.”
“I was so taken with their sensitivity,” she said.
