The Compassionate City Project: Compassion takes many forms

This article originally appeared in Niagara This Week – St. Catharines on March 7, 2018

Niagara IceDogs Mascot Bones, with Kiwanis Minor Hockey players

Helping out in St. Catharines during our #CompassionateSTC weekend was such a great experience. I was able to help several people with different tasks over a three-day stretch. My activities included washing windows while people filled up their cars with gas, helping several of our seniors with their grocery shopping, paying for and serving coffees at one of our local Tim Horton’s locations, and serving hot meals to hungry families in our community.

This experience has impacted me on so many levels. I never realized how helping out in the community would bring so much joy to myself, and to everybody involved. Through the activities this weekend, I began to understand how hard some people work just to get through their day. Whether people were struggling to get their groceries into their vehicle, stuck in emergency at St. Catharines General on a Sunday evening, or grabbing a coffee to stay awake as they take their kids to hockey practice, the people of St. Catharines were always so appreciative of my help.

Being able to put a smile on so many faces really made me feel like a special dog! I am not always in the position to help out in the community like I have been able to this past weekend and thus, I am grateful to have experienced helping out as many people as I was able to. Bringing smiles to their faces brought tears of joy to my face and heart.

On behalf of myself and my #CompassionateSTC teammates, thank you for giving us the opportunity to give back to the community as much as the community has given us.

Niagara this Week is proud to support the Compassionate City Project with this first of a monthly series reflecting on the experience of one of the project ambassadors. For more on the Compassionate City initiative, visit www.compassionatestc.ca.