By Fred Alvarado Fred is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

On October 28th, 2023, All Saint’s church Community Centre hosted an open house event at 315 Dundas St East where local residents dropped by for a coffee, to connect and learn about All Saints church services, programming, and to meet their staff and volunteers.

All Saints church provides a place of friendship, opportunities for socializing and for creative expression for groups and individuals. They offer counselling, advocacy, nursing care, clothing, and settlement services for people in need.

In 1971, under the leadership of the Reverend Norman Ellis, All Saints church became a community centre managed by a board of directors. Most of the church’s pews were removed to create a space for a weekday drop-in centre: one of the first in Toronto.

All Saints’ drop-in centre welcomes people from all walks of life, especially people struggling with homelessness and often dealing with complex health and substance use issues.

Open four days a week, their drop-in is a safe, non-judgemental place where people can have a coffee, rest, eat a hot meal, see a nurse or social worker, access telephone, WIFI, computers, and washroom facilities. They also serve approximately 800 meals each week.

Priest Director Reverend Dr. Alison Falby told RPTV News: “We haven’t had an open house for a number of years, partly because of Covid and various other events that kind of limited our numbers, but today we just opened our doors for people to drop by to have coffee, cookies and muffins, and see some displays of the services we are offering. We mainly serve people experiencing homelessness and other forms of marginalization, such as people having problems accessing housing, health care and other social services.

Our staff provides resources to people for example: meals, nursing care, case management, and harm reduction kits.”