Rossbrook House welcomes all on Christmas Eve

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/12/2023 (671 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rossbrook House on Christmas Eve feels like a family affair.

Most days of the year, the long-time drop-in centre serves young people ages six to 24, offering everything from alternative school programs and homework clubs to a place to sleep 24 hours a day. Christmas Eve is a chance for those youth to bring their families to visit the place they call home away from home for a sit-down meal and holiday fun.

During the first of two scheduled lunches Sunday, around 60 people from all walks of life intermingle. Toddlers, young adults, and grandparents alike walk through the donated meal line — roast beef, pasta, salad, rolls, courtesy of the Sons and Daughters of Italy Garibaldi Lodge — and take to tables. No one is alone. Everyone you speak with, young or old, knows the drop-in centre inside and out.

Parents Breanne Durocher and Willis Ducharme know this feeling intimately. They live nearby, and their five children use the after-school programs and leadership classes. It’s only after speaking with them for a while that they reveal that they met as young people at Rossbrook House years ago — Ducharme, a transplant from the northern town of Swan River, and Durocher, who found comfort here during a “hard” upbringing.

“Growing up and coming here, it was like an escape, you know? It was really good to get get away, and it was a safe place to come and hang around friends and stuff,” Durocher, 31, said, while her children played around her.

Ducharme, 40, ended up working as a co-ordinator at Rossbrook House after moving to Winnipeg. He credits Rossbrook House’s programs for influencing his older children to make safe choices in what can be a dangerous neighbourhood.

“It’s tough out there (for) kids. But a place like this, a place of safety, keeps them busy,” he said. “It keeps them busy enough.”

“I always found it easier to be here rather, than on the streets doing things that I shouldn’t be … and a lot of my friends found that same escape too,” Durocher added. “So, we love it here.”

Rossbrook House takes care of its own, executive director Patty Mainville explains. Founded in 1976 on the corner of Ross Avenue and Sherbrook Street as an alternative to life on the streets, part of the centre’ mantra is to offer opportunities to the youth who come regularly.

”Through this dinner, we’re able to invite the families and the caregivers in, so it allows us to make that extra connection with the families.”–Rossbrook House executive director Patty Mainville

Mainville herself was part of the first set of students to graduate out of the inner-city centre, and about 90 per cent of staff are former Rossbrook House visitors.

“Through this dinner, we’re able to invite the families and the caregivers in, so it allows us to make that extra connection with the families,” she said from the festivities Sunday.

“Our sole purpose is to ensure that we keep our children safe, but to be able to make connections with them, it’s extra special to even make those connections with the family, so the family knows our faces also.”

That close-knit community shines in the details — while there are extra gifts available for anyone who shows up Sunday, all the 150 Rossbrook House kids expected to come today will receive a personalized gift based on their interests.

The experiences of these young people vary widely. Some may only come for after-school clubs, while some are adults taking classes for young parents. Others are children here for meals to keep them going when school is out for the holidays, and for a warm place to sleep at night. Mainville knows that, while today is a day for families, there will be kids coming to sleep at Rossbrook House on Christmas Day.

“What we see is that the need is still there, and it’s still great, within our community,” she said.

“Our children have higher degrees of anxiety, especially when school is out, and that being their safe place and their place where they get snacks and that daily food. Well, Rossbrook becomes that safety net.”

While the Winnipeg chapter of the Sons and Daughters of Italy has donated dinners across the West End for 18 years, this is their first year back to in-person meals after spending the last three years handing out food from a pandemic-friendly distance.

Being able to see families enjoying the food the team cooked is a welcome sight for co-chair Reno Augellone.

“This is great. We’re here with the kids, we’re here looking at their smiling faces,” he said. “We have Santa. It’s going to it’s gonna be the traditional thing, with the food, the gifts, and you just give a little bit of merriment.”

The group’s membership consists of Manitobans of Italian heritage, and their focus, as Augellone puts it, is to “raise money in order to give it away.”

It’s the Italian way, he said.

“This is what we do. Christmas has always been an open table for our families, whoever comes in friends, families, whatever the case may be, they come, it’s a feast,” he said.

“Whether it’s on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, it’s an open table … (we’re) Italians, we eat.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca