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July 3, 2024
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Photo courtesy Archdiocese of Vancouver
As of June 18, the ShareLife parish campaign has accumulated $8.62 million, 62 per cent of its over $14-million goal.
ShareLife, the charitable fundraising arm for the Archdiocese of Toronto since 1976, empowers over 40 Catholic social service agencies with the funds raised through this parish drive.
Arthur Peters, ShareLife’s executive director and the archdiocese’s director of development, said he and his team “are very grateful to the parishioners in the archdiocese who continue to make ShareLife a priority in their giving.”
He particularly commended the generosity of Greater Toronto Area congregants during the three ShareLife special church collections held in each of the archdiocese’s 225 parishes during the March 16-17, April 27-28 and June 1-2 weekends. Peters added that Catholic school participation has also been robust.
Donations to ShareLife enable the non-profit to back agencies or entities tackling food insecurity, supporting victims of domestic violence, caring for isolated seniors, counselling individuals experiencing mental health issues and helping young ladies who become unexpectedly pregnant, among others.
ShareLife’s online multimedia publicity efforts are instrumental to its success each year. In a promotional video titled Your Yes Manifests God’s Love, the story is told about how a woman named Maria (a pseudonym for safety reasons) and her children — she was expecting another — escaped an abusive household and received refuge at the Safe Centre of Peel. The centre, founded in 2011, is one of the 17 agencies unified under Catholic Family Services Peel-Dufferin to aid individuals and families harmed by intimate partner violence.
“Before we had the Safe Centre, women told us that they had to interface with eight different organizations to get the help she needed to become safe,” said Sharon Mayne Devine, the CEO of Catholic Family Services Peel-Dufferin, in the video. “What happened was women gave up. The beauty of the Safe Centre is the woman only needs to remember one person’s name, and that’s the client navigator.”
The liaison who connected with Maria helped her secure safe housing, legal assistance and financial aid. ShareLife donors are credited with helping Maria and her four children attain the freedom and security they enjoy today.
In addition to the restorative, hope-filled efforts near home, Peters said ShareLife is also making a difference abroad. In collaboration with Development and Peace, the archdiocesan charitable arm is providing mental health services for people in war-torn Ukraine.
Prospective users of these services may have experienced periods of extreme hunger and thirst, hiding underground, isolation, disconnection from basic services and trauma from witnessing carnage. Children in particular may experience distress with the lack of a male role model present with their father, uncle or older brother being drafted into the war effort.
“Through this project, we are going to help people cope with the issues they have been facing,” said Peters. “ShareLife funding is going to be put into that program.”
The ShareLife parish campaign runs throughout the calendar year. In 2023, the charitable appeal accrued a record $14.2-million haul.
(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)
A version of this story appeared in the July 14, 2024, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "ShareLife almost two-thirds of the way to its 2024 goal".
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