Happy New Year Everyone!
Well….. 2020 was a roller coaster to say the least.
We had our work cut out coming into 2020, in fact we had a mountain to climb, and just as we were starting to make progress that mountain got higher, as the impact of the pandemic affected our ReStores revenues and traditional ways of raising funds for our mission were severed.
We had to adapt very quickly to an evolving situation, be creative and think very fast, and that’s what we did.
While it was a challenging year and one in which we had to make some difficult decisions, it was also a good year in many ways too. In fact, thanks to a lot of effort across the organization we ended 2020 in a better position than we had forecasted, and that is due to a number of factors; ReStore performance bounced back after the closures, we had record sales in some of the months, we surpassed our fund raising goal, we became more efficient and when we asked for help, the community responded. Our volunteers also played a big part in supporting us, and I can’t thank them enough for the contribution and difference they make to our organization.
At the end of the year we formally received notification of our funding from CMHC the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which will finance a portion of the Lake Country build costs. Also in the last week of December a large bequest we had been expecting finally arrived, this was a great way to end the year.
We will carry this momentum into 2021, which will be a big year for us as we work on our largest building project to date. On the Lake Country site we now have all the civil infrastructure in place and Harmony Homes, our building contractor, will be starting the foundations this week.
We have a lot to be grateful for and looking forward to a very exciting year ahead!
