Safety in numbers Reliable United Way funding bolsters family programs in the community By: Melissa Martin Posted: 10:00 AM CST Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 Last Modified: 10:21 AM CST Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 Updates

On a sharply cold January afternoon, the North End Women’s Centre drop-in is bustling. Women bundled in parkas trundle in the Selkirk Avenue entrance to check in for counselling appointments or ask to use the phone, or inquire about the centre’s supports to help families meet their basic needs.

Other guests are here for the camaraderie. On couches in the sunny main room, five women relax with a cup of coffee, chatting about life and half-watching Schitt’s Creek re-runs on the big-screen TV. A staff member breezes in to the lounge, squeezing past the jam of visitors in the narrow entrance, and makes one last call for the day’s workshop.

“Is anyone else going to come into the group?” she says, brightly. “We’re doing the wellness program today.”

The immediate impression of the centre, on this average weekday, is one of constant motion. Upstairs in her office, executive director Cynthia Drebot chuckles: there’s never a dull moment, she agrees. As we chat, staff downstairs calmly tend to a visitor who is dipping out of consciousness, likely due to drug intake.

So what does it take to keep this place going?

When Drebot took the job 12 years ago, it was “a different time,” she says. The challenges faced by the community were much the same: poverty, housing insecurity, trauma, addiction. But the scope of those challenges has intensified. More people struggle to find safe housing and addictions have dug in deeper.

“Back then, if you would have come in downstairs, we would’ve had one person down there as staff and they would’ve been answering the phone and supporting the needs of the people who were coming in the door, doing everything,” Drebot says. “Now, we can’t operate with less than three or four, based on the community need and the volume of people.”

Somehow, the centre had to find a way to keep pace. It found a lifeline in the United Way’s For Every Family program.

Since launching in 2016, the program has helped centres such as this one keep their communities going. It provides 25 resource centres across Winnipeg with dependable annual funding. The money is raised separately from the United Way’s main annual campaign and is boosted by matching provincial funding, a longtime arrangement.

The funds have helped resource centres expand hours, hire staff and improve wages. They’ve allowed them to add critical community supports, including liaisons who help families navigate the child welfare system, which enables more families to stay together, and tax experts to help people receive all of the deductions and benefits they’re owed.

The program acts as a network by bringing the agencies together to share best practices and learn from each other.

Together, those offerings make an immediate, material difference in their communities. Since September 2018, the tax support program alone has returned $60.5 million to local families. For every dollar it costs to run, it recovers $21 directly into residents’ hands.

Now, the program is set to get a boost. On Thursday, the province announced it would extend its long-running partnership with For Every Family until 2028. Its annual investment will also increase, rising to $2 million from the current $1.5 million, contingent on ongoing community investment.

The United Way will match the Manitoba government’s contribution through donations for a total investment of $4 million per year for the next three years.

The support is significant. At the North End centre, United Way funding alone accounts for about one-third of the annual $2.5 million budget. When the program launched, Drebot says, they were able to expand their drop-in staffing “just right away.” It also offers the centre stability to retain staff over longer periods, predictability its visitors need.

“We’re a place for basic needs to be met, but we’re also a place where community comes together,” Drebot says. “The people who use the drop-in have their own story of why they walk in the door. They might come because of friendship. They might come in because they like the staff. They might come in because they like the programs.”

“It’s a connection point that we need now more than ever,” she adds. “I’m really glad United Way picked up on that a decade ago, because I think it’s evolved into something that is starting to weave itself into the fabric of how we support people who are struggling in our community.”

One key aspect of the program is that much of the funding is flexible and not tied to a specific use.

“United Way has tried very hard to not be prescriptive in this project,” says Marianne Krawchuk, United Way Winnipeg’s senior manager of impact and innovation. “We know the resource centres know their community best. They see the needs every day. They know what works and what doesn’t. We’re not trying to make them all look the same.”

Drebot vouches for this approach. Early in the program, the centre used the money to stretch drop-in hours into the evening. They found there wasn’t much demand for that in their neighbourhood and pivoted to adding more daytime staff and services.

That nimble approach has been key to For Every Family since its inception. The concept arose in 2015 when a group of core United Way fundraisers started planning ways to mark the charity’s 50th anniversary. At the time, Krawchuk had met with some family centres and knew how important their work was: each year, they see more than 50,000 visitors.

So if United Way could offer the centres a sustainable source of funds and co-ordination — and the freedom to adapt as needs evolved — the potential seemed immense. To Anne Mahon, who recently retired as University of Manitoba chancellor and is United Way’s incoming 2026 campaign chair, it was an inspiring idea.

“It looked to me like a successful model because it was in the heart of different neighbourhoods, it was accessible, it was non-judgmental, and it met the community where the community was at,” Mahon says. “It wasn’t a top-down approach. It was a bottom-up approach, in the sense that each resource centre was a bit different, but had many similarities.

“They knew what their clientele needed and they knew how they could help.”

Now, 10 years later, as For Every Family looks towards a new phase that could include more longer-term funding, Mahon says supporting the program remains among her most satisfying philanthropic endeavours. That’s in part because of the centres’ efficiency: every dollar is used, she says, and nothing is wasted. It’s also because of their mission.

“It honours the capacity of the people who come through the door that need a helping hand because they’ve had some kind of problem in their life,” Mahon says. “Their problem does not define them… there is a capacity there, and also the capacity of the family resource centres, because there’s a lot of deep caring that goes on there.”

Krawchuk, who’s helped guide the program since the beginning, is “really grateful and surprised” it still thrives.

“I don’t know that it was ever intended to be this long, but we continue to have so much support and momentum for the initiative,” she says. “We have really high engagement, and 10 years later that continues. So it demonstrates there’s clear value for the centres and for the model.”

Proof of the support’s importance shows in the stories that pass through the centres every day.

Charlene Bird started going to the North End centre two years ago, when she was having issues with her landlord. Before long, the 52-year-old’s bubbly personality and radiant smile made her one of the centre’s most beloved visitors. That connection soon became even more vital: when her son died last year, the free counselling and welcoming space kept her going.

“Without them, I would have been lost,” Bird says. “I feel so safe here.”

Now, Bird does her part to help spread the word by inviting others to join her and find that support.

“In this community, there are a lot of women that are struggling with things, and it’s hard to see them,” Bird says. “But (here) they do their best in helping them and guiding the ladies to get the help they need, and the resources. I always tell ladies, ‘come to this place, it will help you.’ I always put it out there, because this place is really truly a blessing.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca