Moose Jaw Building Project - It's a go! 'Shovel in the ground' by September 2024!

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is very excited to announce the construction of a new multipurpose humanitarian facility in the city of Moose Jaw!

Now that we’ve purchased the land at 212 & 218 River Street West and demolished the old existing building that was there, we’re ready to proceed with the construction of the new facility in the fall of 2024. The remediation of the land (there was an old garage/gas station there) is complete and we have the environmental reports to support that claim. This will be an all-encompassing holistic build in the sense that not only will we be able to care for and support society’s last and least (the process of reclaiming broken lives), but we’ll have reclaimed and repurposed the land itself as well! In addition to that, this multi-camera 7,400 square foot and secure facility will be alcohol and drug free. The current buildings are 100 years old and in desperate need of replacement.

Having said that, and generally speaking, this multi-million dollar building will house and include a) act as an Emergency Services Center which includes a commercial kitchen, a men’s emergency shelter, and a free clothing ‘store’ b) a Food Distribution and Clothing Processing Centre, c) Community Support Service Offices. The details of these programs and services are as follows:

Emergency Services:

The old facility has been serving Moose Jaw’s most needy for many years, and has been and continues to be a beacon of light and a source of hope within the community. Last year alone it served well over 15,000 meals and gave away over 1000 nights of free emergency shelter.

We will continue to provide both a healthy and nutritious lunch meal and a supper meal each week from Monday to Friday. The dining room will comfortably sit 50 people at one time with multiple sittings available each day if needed and as necessary. Three Community Meals (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) will also be served. There will be a full commercial kitchen with gas ranges, new modern kitchen equipment, multiple stainless steel surfaces, a commercial dishwasher, etc.

At night, the dining room will convert from a dining area to a men’s emergency shelter, with an increased capacity from 10 men to 12. The men will help with the chores, putting away the chairs and bringing out the cots for the night.

There will be showers, laundry facilities, and a small heat treatment room to address various health concerns.

Breakfast will be served to our shelter guests in the morning before they leave for the day.

Food Distribution & Clothing Processing Centre:

This area consists of a large freezer and cooler, and a large distribution area that includes an assortment of heavy duty industrial shelving for pallets of product. Both prior to the pandemic and during it, Souls Harbour Rescue Mission received some very large donations of food. These donations, in conjunction with numerous pallets of food from a few key partnerships that we’ve developed over the years, were far more than we needed. With such abundance we were able to share large quantities of meat, produce, and fruit with Food Banks in Regina, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Assiniboia, Weyburn, Estevan, and Yorkton. In addition to this we also shared food with a variety of other non-profits. This vision for food distribution in Southern Saskatchewan is a natural progression; from giving away daily meals and hampers, to forklifting pallets of food to other meal and hamper providers.

Here we will also process the vast amount of clothing donations that we regularly receive. Clothing donations will be sorted, laundered, and initially distributed at no cost to the needy in both Moose Jaw and Regina; as an example, through our free clothing “store” in Regina. After that, all excess summer clothing will be baled in the Center and then placed in a container which when full will be shipped to orphanages and other ministries in South America or overseas to Africa. All of our clothing is and will be given away for free! We do not resell any clothing.

Community Support Service Offices:

This building was designed with a ‘shared responsibility’ philosophy in recognizing that for many individuals; real success, whether being drug free, having your own home, holding a job, etc., comes best when more than one person, service, or organization supports that individual collectively with other like-minded people or agencies. In a sense, similar to the African Proverb that says: “It takes a village to raise a child.”

There will be two Community Support Service Offices located throughout the building. These offices will be provided free of charge to other service providers, with the intention of providing additional support to shelter guests and those participating in our meal programs. Those support services will consist of onsite pastoral counseling, professional counseling, assistance for medical appointments, various liaison roles, resume preparation, etc.

We believe that with these additional support services we can grow a caring and hopeful community within the greater community; a place where we can ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’, and a place where ‘hope begins with a meal’ but ends with ‘real answers for real people’.