More Than a Building – Giving Challenge
The Challenge
This year, on Social Media Giving Day, one of our donors, whom we’ll call John, has a challenge for you! John has started this challenge by giving $15,000 towards our building, and he hopes you will keep the momentum going with your gift of any amount.
John has a strong desire to see OIM’s outstanding balance on our building decrease, to better enable us to completely focus on meeting the needs of our street friends. John would be overjoyed to see gifts of any amount contributed to this challenge. He recognizes that our building continues to be a sending place for our street teams and a place of community and safety for our various programs.
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John believes, with no or a reduced debt, we can truly be a beacon for hope, community, and justice. Meeting this challenge would mean more help - food, basic clothing, essential toiletries - can get to our street friends. Even giving a small amount will go a long way to helping us come alongside the ever-growing number of friends struggling with poverty and homelessness and offer them food, encouragement and prayer.
"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who lives his fellowman has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8).
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Duration: Until building loan renewal on October 29.
How to Participate
Participating in this event is very easy! In just six easy steps, you can give to our Building Challenge Fund.
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Click the donate button on this page.
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Select the amount you’d like to donate.
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Click on the fund designation drop-down menu and select “G-Building Fund.”
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Under “Dedication Information,” click “No dedication.”
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Complete the rest of the form.
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Click submit.
If you have any questions or need help, please contact Sue, our Donor Care Coordinator: Sue.O’Neal@ottawainnercityministries.ca.
Our Building’s History
In the early days, OIM’s “office” would have been the backseat of our founders’ car, public washrooms, closets in church basements, and so on. For a long while after that, we began an era of serving out of various church and commercial leased spaces. Just before moving to our current office building at 391 Gladstone, we were in a broken-down third-floor space on Bank Street. It had no working elevator, meaning the Street Teams had to haul filled and empty wagons down and then up three flights of stairs. That space did not have the capacity for ministry programs.​
In 2018, everything changed when an affordable lease became available, which allowed us to relocate to our current building. In 2021, with God’s blessing, the benevolence of that same landlord, and many exceptional gifts from others, we replaced rent payments with mortgage payments. The three-year mortgage term comes up for renewal in October.
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Now six years in this building, we celebrate what it means to those we serve. Our building is more than just bricks and mortar; it is the sending place from where our street teams go to serve Ottawa’s most vulnerable. It is a haven for the at-risk Veterans and youth who come weekly for the community, essential items and meals. It is a place to receive resources that will then be given to our street friends. It is our workplace where we plan and deliver the programs that are so important to those in need.
