GivingTuesday is ‘pivotal’ for Ottawa Mission this year
Posted Dec 1, 2025 01:57:33 PM.
Last Updated Dec 2, 2025 08:12:28 AM.
Every year, donations around the holiday season are important for charities, but this year is one of the most important, the Ottawa Mission said.
The charity has faced more uncertainty with donations this year as a Canada Post strike — for the second time in a row — disrupted service just ahead of the most in-demand season. This year, the Mission is also facing more demand than ever, stretching its budget and hoping to cover everyone who is in need.
Like most charities, the Mission is promoting GivingTuesday, which originated in the United States and falls after the Thanksgiving weekend south of the border. It is a movement that promotes donating to non-profits and charities to help out communities.
“Giving Tuesday is pivotal for our shelter to raise funds for our transformational programs, and with the postal strike having affected our Thanksgiving fundraising campaign, it’s all the more important this year,” an Ottawa Mission spokesperson said in an email to CityNews.
This year, the charity is hosting a special green-themed meal for people to purchase at Chef Ric’s, located at 384 Rideau St. between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Dec. 2. The menu consists of a French-Canadian green pea soup, spinach pasta with creamy garlic sauce, garlic bread, and a kale-spinach salad with pear vinaigrette.
All the proceeds from the meal will support the Ottawa Mission, with those who donate extra will receive an additional green cupcake.
Donations made to the Mission on Dec. 1 and 2 will be matched by DYMON.
Homelessness at ‘catastrophic levels’
Five years ago city council declared a homelessness emergency, and since then, numbers have continued to rise.
The Ottawa Mission said that it is at “catastrophic levels” because of the “erosion of affordable housing, the inadequate supply of supportive housing, mental health distress, substance use, job loss, and high inflation for essentials such as food.”
This, the charity said, has put pressure on it to catch people slipping through the cracks and pushed its shelter over the limit. The Mission’s beds were overcapacity, forcing staff to put out mats on the chapel floor so people had a safe place to stay.
There are almost 3,000 people in Ottawa experiencing homelessness, according to the 2024 Point-in-Time (PiT) count, a snapshot of the number of people living without a home. Rising in tandem is the number of meals the Ottawa Mission serves annually. Numbers shared by the charity show a 244 per cent increase in meals served since before the pandemic.
This has forced the charity to continue raising more funds to help cover the demand it sees. It said in a release that the needed funds have jumped “significantly” since before the pandemic, while sources of revenue have slowed.
“Coupled with unprecedented community need, the Mission must also contend with an increasingly unstable fundraising environment marked by two postal disruptions, which have impacted our ability to fundraise through direct mail, as well as general economic uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs and other factors,” it said.
