Original agencies’ legacy carries on today

A well-established and well-organized network of Catholic agencies had already been serving the Metro Toronto area when Toronto Archbishop Phillip Pocock withdrew from United Way in early 1976. Pocock’s confidence in their continued success contrasted sharply with the uncertainty of others involved, but has proven wholly warranted 50 years later.

Retired Toronto Archbishop Cardinal Thomas Collins spoke to the heart of why ShareLife and the agencies supported by the annual campaign have endured so successfully. 

“You can be sure when you give money to ShareLife that it will go to causes which are totally in harmony with our Catholic faith,” Collins said.

Advertisement

ShareLife came into existence in response to a moral problem. When Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider, was added as a recipient of United Way funding in 1975, Pocock made the momentous decision to remove the Council of Catholic Charities from the integrated fundraising entity.

“I am prepared to take the responsibility of sustaining the services of Catholic Charities to the community,” Pocock told the Catholic faithful on March 19, 1976. 

While Pocock would bear the responsibility, the Catholic laity, priests and religious would carry out the necessary work. It was a role Catholic aid organizations were accustomed to fulfilling.

At the launch of the 1976 ShareLife corporate appeal, Pocock stressed the vital role Catholic social services had long played in the community. Not only had Catholic agencies been serving in Toronto about 125 years, but those organizations served everyone in need, not just Catholics.

“The requirements of our agencies are genuine responses to specific social concerns of the community at large — regardless of race, creed or colour,” Pocock noted. 

Those agencies within the Council of Catholic Charities’ family were Sancta Maria House, St. Elizabeth Visiting Nurses, Rosalie Hall, Catholic Family Services, Columbus Boy’s Camp, Catholic Settlement House and Catholic Youth Organization. Many were originally built by, or in collaboration with, religious communities, and have undergone many changes and adaptions in the past 50 years. Some, though striving to remain true to the original vision of their founders, have changed beyond recognition. Others, like Columbus Boy’s Camp and Catholic Settlement House, are no longer in existence.

Rosalie Hall is an example of a longstanding mission that, despite the huge societal changes that have marked recent decades, remains committed to the original objective to provide a safe space for young mothers and their children. The residence had its origins in the 19th century with the work of the Misericordia Sisters, a religious order with a charism of care for unwed mothers and their babies. 

Rosalie Hall has been present at its Scarborough location for some 70 years and at the time ShareLife was founded, was a focal point for the impact of societal change.

In October 1975, just one year before the launch of ShareLife, the Toronto Star published a story about Rosalie Hall which ran with the headline, “Maternity Homes are busy despite Pill.” 

“The myth that the Pill has emptied maternity homes for unwed mothers is exactly that, a myth,” the article began.

Six years later, the Star published another story about Rosalie Hall. Once again noting the shift in social mores, the story opened with the line, “While attitudes towards unwed mothers have softened over the years, their need for group-home care has remained strong.”

The current director of programs, Reshawn Jeffers Hunter, heartily concurs with the conclusion of that sentence.

“Across the sector, there has been a shift away from live-in treatment,” Hunter said, “but at Rosalie Hall we recognize there’s still the need for live-in treatment. We want to be able to continue to provide that. In some ways, there’s almost a greater need now.”

Today, Rosalie Hall has a staff of 50 and the capacity to house and support up to 12 young women and their children. It also runs a school program which can accommodate up to 24 young parents working towards their high school diploma. 

Advertisement

The connection between Rosalie Hall and ShareLife and Catholic Charities remains as strong as ever.

“We’re really grateful for the support of ShareLife and to be part of this group of agencies doing the work and supporting each other,” said Hunter. 

From its earliest days, ShareLife has been marked by a grassroots approach to community support and development. From the organizations funded to the method of fundraising, ShareLife and Catholic Charities together exemplify the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, small and local trumps large and top-down.

An important part of the ShareLife story is the thousands of volunteers who have hit the streets to raise money for Catholic aid agencies over the years. In 1981, the ShareLife campaign would involve approximately 30,000 volunteers canvassing door-to-door. Though the parish ShareLife teams are not nearly so large these days, that critical element of dedicated volunteers committed to both raising the necessary funds and providing support to the organizations remains as important as ever.

Silent Voice, now Deaf Services Canada, is a good example of an organization that started as a local initiative created to meet a very particular need. Now an agency of Catholic Charities, the organization which supports and advocates for the deaf arose from conversations in the basement of Holy Name Church on the Danforth. 

Brian Dwyer, then a priest in the Toronto archdiocese, had learned sign language in seminary and, following ordination, was appointed to Holy Name Parish where there was an active ministry to the deaf under the leadership of Fr. John Moss.

“I felt drawn into a mission to encourage the Archdiocese of Toronto to focus on deaf people in a really meaningful way in terms of ministry,” he said.

Dwyer knew the Church had something to say to society and it “had a big role to play in stepping up and doing whatever it could to get society to open its arms, minds and hearts to provide adequate equal services to deaf people.”

With a team of volunteers, Dwyer put together the building blocks for an organization that would provide services and advocate for deaf people.

ShareLife was a natural fit. As a relatively new venture, Dwyer thought “we would be in right at the beginning, and we’d have a better chance to be part of it.”

Dwyer believes Silent Voice has succeeded in providing both spiritual and material support for deaf people in Toronto.

Dwyer also thinks ShareLife has changed the culture of care in the archdiocese.

“The word that struck me was how the archbishop spoke of ShareLife as a sort of a pathway, a way toward the future. I thought that was a really good way to say we were about to start something that’s going to open up, become bigger, to provide people with a way forward.”

 While many of the original ShareLife organizations have either closed or left the Catholic Charities umbrella, other organizations have come to fill their place, and the support provided by the different agencies has extended both regionally and in scope. From those original seven organizations, the list of agencies now supported by ShareLife has grown to 40. 

Almost immediately following the creation of ShareLife, Catholic Family Services began to expand to regions outside of the Metro Toronto. Between 1978 and 1981, family services were developed in Simcoe County, York, Peel-Dufferin and Durham regions. 

Advertisement

Though Columbus Boy’s Camp was closed, ShareLife now supports Camp Ozanam, a summer camp for boys located on the edge of Algonquin Park. Owned and run by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Camp Ozanam gives the gift of the camp to boys who would not otherwise be able to have that quintessential summer experience.

Fifty years on, despite social and political changes, the decision by Pocock to place a Catholic stamp on social services has continued to shape the organizations which serve Torontonians, Catholic or not.

A version of this article appeared in the September 27, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Original agencies’ legacy carries on today".