Halifax’s Souls Harbour Rescue Mission awarded $50K from women’s charity

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission in Halifax is pictured. (Jonathan MacInnis/CTV Atlantic)

Thursday marks IODE Founder’s Day for IODE Canada -- a women’s charity founded in New Brunswick 125 years ago.

As part of the special day, the non-profit organization is gifting a grant worth $50,000 in an effort to help prevent child abuse and neglect.

This year’s recipient is Souls Harbour Rescue Mission in Halifax for its Souls Harbour Family Stability Through Housing and Support program.

The program, which IODE Canada calls transformative, is dedicated to preventing child abuse and neglect at its root causes.

This includes:

- housing instability

- parental stress

- unemployment

- the absence of strong support systems

The program aims to create a safer and healthier environment for both children and their families. The grant will help continue to build the program that not only provides immediate relief to vulnerable families, but also fosters long-term well-being, resilience, and self-sufficiency.

“I’m very excited because it’s an all new global approach to preventing child abuse,” IODE Canada president Jane Cushing told CTV Atlantic ahead of the announcement on Wednesday.

“There’s a huge variety of people and projects all across the country, great big ones and very small ones that make a huge difference in some individual’s lives and it’s a real privilege to be apart of that.”

The mission of Souls Harbour is to rescue people from poverty, addiction and despair by offering emergency help such as food, clothing and shelter, life-changing recovery programs, and the Gospel message, according to its website.

Since the first grant was awarded in 2001, IODE has given a total of $355,000 to vital community programs across the country.

IODE Canada is a national women’s charitable organization that focuses on children, education, and community services.

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