Women staying in Ottawa shelters will be receiving a number of heartfelt gestures this Feb. 14, thanks to an event called Valentines for Women’s Shelters.
The initiative, which aims to send valentine greetings to women who have escaped violence or other threats to their well-being, originates from an event in Winnipeg that was started by Meg Crane, founder of the feminist magazine Cockroach.
Crane launched the project in 2014, when she and a few colleagues decided to make valentines for residents of a homeless shelter in the Manitoba capital.
“It was a great success and I wanted to do something similar in 2015,” Crane says of the event’s initial response.
“When deciding which shelter to give the valentines to, I realized that February 14 is probably a particularly difficult day for people who have left abusive relationships, so I decided to send the cards to women’s shelters,” she says.
“It’s also a great way to get people talking about domestic abuse.”
Crane added that she has already extended the project to a number of shelters in the Maritimes, Alberta and in the Northwest Territories, hoping that by 2017 she can expand her project to cover all of the women shelters in Canada.
Brittany Paulhus, one of Crane’s former colleagues, is a Centretown resident who brought the event to the capital this year.
It was held at Planet Botanix, a Bank Street health and wellness store, on Saturday (Feb. 6), when it opened its doors to members of the community to either drop off valentines or make them with others on the spot.
A total of 512 Valentine greetings were produced as a result of the daylong initiative.
Donations in the form of feminine products, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and shampoo were also accepted to accompany the cards.
Items will be sent to Centretown’s Harmony House and Cornerstone Housing for Women, as well as Evelyn Horne Emergency and Transitional Housing.
Paulhus, who recently moved to Ottawa from Winnipeg, says she did not expect that the event would generate such a strong reaction in the community.
“When I moved here, I only knew four people. So, I made a Facebook event and invited those four people thinking if anyone is going to actually come to this, and then kind of overnight it picked up a lot,” she explains.
Paulhus added that more than 300 people reached out to her with the intent to either make valentines or collect donations.
Poppy Fitzgerald-Clark, a local artist, was one of those individuals drawn to the idea.
Fitzgerald- Clark says she has made a number of cards for the women in her spare time, but also collected donations from other artists, friends and colleagues.
“Obviously these women are in a difficult situation… and I feel like it’s so good and so important to help people out who don’t have much happiness,” she says.
“Valentines Day is honestly a terrible day. Most people feel quite lonely, so I hope this will cheer them up. It’s something positive and I hope the donations will help them out as well.”
Connie Franklin, resource development manager of Cornerstone Housing for Women on Booth Street says this type of outreach effort means more to the women than people think.
“Typically the women who are at our shelter are in distress and if you could imagine what it might be like to have experienced some really difficult times and how you might feel, the residents are touched when people they don’t know are doing things to help them,” she explains.
“It just really means a lot to us as an organization, but also those who are on the receiving end of those donations. They are really very touched.”
Franklin added that she hopes the event will soon be able to reach all women’s shelters in Canada.
“I think this is a very lovely gesture,” she says. “Our women who come to Cornerstone are very touched by the generosity of others, so I imagine this means the same to other women all across the nation.”