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Wanna play with the Bruins?

  On October 5, for the first time ever, the big bad Boston Bruins are coming to Victoria to play a charity hockey game against the Greater Victoria Firefighters to support Umbrella. Led by NHL Legend Ray Bourque, we are excited to welcome Al Iafrate, Ken Linesmen, Bo...
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SMART Recovery

Umbrella is excited to announce that we are hosting a weekly SMART recovery meeting at our office starting Wednesday, August 21 at 12noon to 1:30. This drop in recovery support group is welcome to all and is facilitated by Lesley and Adrian. Lesley has been faciliating ...
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Thank you United Way!

How lucky are we? Rachel from the United Way called us today about tickets for the Harbour Cats game tonight, and offered them to Umbrella. It took a quick call to Cooper House and Foundation House to have them all spoken for. The guys are all very excited to attend an...
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Look what we grew!

Last night the guys at Cooper House sent us this photo of the potatoes they grew. They have other veggies growing too, but I was particularly impressed by these potatoes. It is amazing to see the new interests, passions and skills our residents learn when they are no lo...
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Victoria Sexual Assault Centre

Every Wednesday Umbrella has a team meeting, and we rotate the chair of the meeting among the staff. This week, Louise was our chair and she had arranged for Victoria Sexual Assault Centre to come and share more about the great work they are doing in the community. Sama...
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Minister Judy Darcy

What a great meeting! Today, Sharlene and Evan had the pleasure to meet with the Minister of Mental Health & Addictions, Honorable Judy Darcy. Minister Darcy and her team have made some incredible strides in our fractured MHSU system, and there was some great conversati...
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Our new office!

It took all day Friday and half of Sunday, but we have the new office set up and ready to go for Tuesday! This office was truly a community effort with support from our board, staff, residents, and community. There was some major magic that played a role in this move as...
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IKEA building

Umbrella has been busy getting our new office all set up. We needed to enlist the help of board, staff and friends of Umbrella to get all the IKEA things together. As you can see Kelly and Sean were working hard while Evan was falling behind.. looking distracted by his ...
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Thank you QVCC!

Today we said goodbye to our amazing friends at the Quadra Village Community Centre. For the last 15 years, QVCC has been our home, our only office. The staff there have been an incredible part of shaping the future of the Umbrella Society. Today, we transition to our...
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Soap for Hope

When Bronwyn, Sharlene and Alison attended Thriving Non-Profits they made lots of great community connections. Today, Sharlene and Evan went to Soap for Hope and toured their amazing program, led by Anne, the ED of Disaster Aid Canada. Anne loaded our car up with linens...