February
19, 2007
Presenting: St. Aidan’s Church and
Father Stephen Kirkegaard – Charity Comes Full Circle in the
Beach
It’s ironic, just as I decided to do my first neighbourhood
portrait of Toronto, the Beach, my intended subject, was in
the news a lot. For the entire month of January of 2007 newspapers,
television stations and radio call-in shows were fascinated by one
topic: the proposed Out of the Cold Program at St. Aidan’s
Church at the eastern end of the Beach neighbourhood.
The larger Out of the Cold network is an ecumenical project of
a large number of Toronto-area religious communities, which open
their doors to provide shelter, food and personal support for those
in severe need in our City. These programs are coordinated so that
there are always locations open during the winter months from November
through April. Guests at overnight locations are served an evening
meal, accommodated on mats and sleeping bags for the night, and
served breakfast in the morning. Out of the Cold has been operating
in Toronto since 1987 and originated from the efforts of Toronto
social activist Sister Susan Moran and the students at St. Michael's
College School, who wanted to help the homeless.
Part of the front facade of St. Aidan's Church
At St. Aidan's, the Out of the Cold program proposed to house 12
homeless men and women for 12 nights during the winter (all Monday
nights) in an overnight drop-in program. Some residents in the area
were concerned about the program and how it might affect children
that are attending the day-care program at the Church, or whether
it might have an impact on property values. The ensuing media coverage
created quite a controversy, and some articles portrayed the Beach
neighbourhood in less than flattering terms.
By now I have personally spent about two months in the Beach, interacting
with and interviewing a large number of non-profit organizations,
volunteers, philanthropists and regular residents, and I have been
nothing but amazed at the amount of community involvement, charity,
neighbourly assistance and humanitarian outreach that I have witnessed
in the Beach. To mention just one example, I interviewed Arie
Nerman, President of the Beach Hebrew Institute. His synagogue
is part of the Beach Interfaith Outreach Program which hosts lunch
drop-in programs for the less fortunate at five different houses
of worship in the Beach every day from Monday to Friday for about
seven years now. The spirit of helping the homeless is absolutely
not new in the Beach. It was high time for me to visit St. Aidan’s
and learn more about the Out of the Cold Program first hand.
I contacted the person in charge of the initiative: Father Stephen
Kirkegaard, the priest of St. Aidan’s Anglican Church. His
response was very welcoming and friendly, and he invited me to come
in on Monday evening to see the Out of the Cold program in action.
So right at 7 pm I showed up at St. Aidan’s, a beautiful church
at Queen Street and Silverbirch Avenue that is going to celebrate
its 100th anniversary this year. Several volunteers were posted
throughout the hallways of the church and directed me into the basement
where about 20 people were located, including guests of the Out
of the Cold Program and volunteers. Two long tables were set up
with food, and groups of people were sitting around tables, talking
and playing cards. The atmosphere was quiet, pleasant and peaceful.
Right away I spotted Father Stephen; he was just in the middle
of a euchre game with some of the guests and volunteers. He asked
me to help myself to a bowl of soup and a drink and have a seat.
I gladly accepted and helped myself to a hot steaming vegetable
soup that on this day had been donated by the Quigley's Pub and
Bistro. The soup was flavoured with oregano and other interesting
spices, and it was a delicious treat on a cold winter day.
Father Stephen Kirkegaard
After Father Stephen finished his euchre game we briefly went upstairs
to discuss the plan for the interviews, and he explained that many
of the guests who use this overnight homeless drop-in program are
rather camera-shy and not very comfortable with the media. Also,
there has been a lot of recent media attention, on some evenings
there were seven over-night guests and 30 reporters. As a result
many of the guests might understandably be experiencing a certain
media fatigue.
I assured Father Stephen that I would completely respect the preferences
of the guests and volunteers and only interview individuals who
were comfortable with sharing their own story. The same would apply
to photos: only individuals that would agree to have their picture
taken would be photographed. This is a general policy that I apply
in all my interviews.
Father Stephen explained that it would be a better idea to interview
one of the guests first because they might actually get tired and
want to go to bed. Then I was going to interview some of the volunteers
and finally I would sit down with Father Stephen himself to get
to know the Out of the Cold Program through his words.
So we went back into the basement and I sat down with one of the
guests who had agreed to speak to me. Franklin started to tell me
his life story: until very recently he was a fairly successful business
person in the United States. He is originally from Toronto and owned
a logistics company and decided to move to the Southern US to qualify
for the Champion’s Golf Tour. Things were going well for him;
he had good relationships with his customers, and he was working
with his golf coach on improving his game.
Then the unthinkable happened: two of his major clients filed for
bankruptcy, and along the way Franklin lost $100,000 of his own
savings to pay his suppliers. In addition he suffered a severe knee
injury which spelled the end of his golfing career. Two emergency
surgeries drained him of another $40,000. At the end of these events
Franklin himself was bankrupt and penniless.
So he returned to Canada in October of 2006. At the beginning he
stayed with his brother who has his own family. Space was getting
too small, so Franklin had to look for another place to live and
he found short-term shelter with a friend in High Park. Ever since
his return he has been trying to look for work and has been applying
for numerous jobs. He has been looking for jobs in the golf industry,
or as a driver since he has a perfect driver’s abstract and
no demerit points. So far Franklin has not had any luck in finding
a job, and he thinks that this has to do with his age: he is turning
56 this year. Franklin is finding that many employers simply are
not interested in hiring older workers, despite the fact that he
is well-spoken, has many years of management and business experience
and a range of marketable skills.
Father Stephen (middle) playing cards with two guests, Franklin
is on the left
Because his short-term accommodation options had run out and Franklin
had no money and no place to stay, he was looking at other alternatives.
He heard about the Out of the Cold program and decided to find out
more about it. Franklin has been coming to St. Aidan’s Church
for the fourth week in a row now, and he really enjoys the drop-in
program at St. Aidan’s because it is such a small program.
He added that some of the other facilities have 40 to 60 overnight
guests and very limited bathroom facilities, something that affected
him recently when he suffered from a stomach flue.
Franklin added that the people at St. Aidan’s are great and
the food is outstanding. He is really grateful to this organization
for the help that they give to people in need and added that he
has a lot of respect and admiration for Father Stephen. In addition,
a lot of the volunteers are just regular people from the community.
Franklin enjoys the interaction with the locals who dedicate their
time to help. To educate me Franklin pulled a piece of paper from
his pocket that listed all the various religious organizations that
are participating in the Out of the Cold Program. Every night of
the week three or four different houses of worship open their doors
to people who need a roof over their head. The organizations include
Christian churches from a variety of denominations, synagogues as
well as mosques. Franklin added that he has been to a variety of
the synagogues as well as to one of the mosques, and he found the
people in all these organizations extremely hospitable, friendly
and welcoming.
Our conversation touched on modern city living in general, and
Franklin was wondering how many people are living on the edge, how
many people might be one pay cheque away from being on the street
themselves. Many people today are living beyond their means, financing
their lifestyle with credit cards. It does not take much to upset
the financial balance in these situations.
Franklin said that two years ago he would have laughed if someone
had told him where he would be today. He added that he is drug and
alcohol free and is very willing to work. Right now he is worried
about his grown-up daughter who just finished her degree at Concordia
University and now wants to go on towards a graduate degree. It
pains him to not be able to help his daughter financially right
now.
Franklin’s story touched me and shook me up at the same time.
As a small business owner myself I know how quickly things can change
when major clients shut down, relocate or get merged away. Franklin’s
story was definitely not the typical homeless story that most of
us might think of.
Robert Saxon, a volunteer
Franklin was ready to join some of the others in watching “Pirates
of the Caribbean” which had started to play on the TV in St.
Aidan’s community room, so I thanked him for his time and
we said goodbye. I was also interested in some of the volunteers
who make this program work. Robert Saxon is a professor at the Ontario
College of Art and Design and teaches advertising. Two years ago
he relocated to Toronto from Syracuse University. Robert was born
in Memphis, Tennessee, and has lived in major cities all across
the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Atlanta. About his new home town he says “Toronto is a
great city, right up there with all the major cities. I love how
safe Toronto is”. He continued to say that he now lives in
the Beach and has fallen in love with this area: he is just 20 minutes
away from downtown and really enjoys the distinct neighbourhood
feel of the Beach.
Through his attendance at St. Aidan’s he has met a number
of new friends, and that is also how he found out about the volunteer
opportunities for the Out of the Cold Program. Robert considers
himself very fortunate and feels he has not done enough community
service throughout his life. He sums it up as “It’s
time to give something back to the community”. As far as the
homeless issue is concerned, he figured he could very easily be
one of those people, it only takes a streak of bad luck to put you
out onto the street.
Robert added that he read a book once called “Travels with
Charlie” which was written by a homeless person. The book
eloquently told the story of a homeless man’s life on the
street, and ever since Robert read the book he always gives money
when he sees a homeless person. Ever since he started volunteering
with the Out of the Cold Program he wishes he could do more. Getting
involved in the community in an unselfish way has been an important
step for him, he realized late in life that he wanted to give back
to the community.
Just recently Robert’s daughter went away to university.
She had not been able to reach him, so she asked him where he had
been. He explained that he had been volunteering for the Out of
the Cold program and his daughter said “That’s great”.
Maybe she was also considering doing some volunteer work herself,
and both father and daughter were surprised at their new found interest
in community involvement.
Matt O’Gorman is another volunteer with the Out of the Cold
Program. He has been living in the Beach since 1984 together with
his wife and three children. Matt has always lived in Toronto and
has an engineering background: he is currently working on a train
signalling project in Shanghai and also gets to travel to this interesting
place on business. His wife also volunteers with the program and
helps to serve breakfast to the guests in the mornings. Their three
sons attend different schools in the neighbourhood and are very
involved in hockey, lacrosse, karate and music.
Matt O'Gorman
In addition to volunteering for the Out of the Cold Program Matt
also dedicates his time as a lacrosse coach and as a manager in
the Greater Toronto Hockey League while his wife is a coach in the
local soccer league. Matt added that volunteering is fun, he gets
a lot out of it.
Originally he heard about the Out of the Cold Program through an
article in the Beach Metro
News. Then there was a community meeting at St. Aidan’s
in November, and Matt added “It seemed like a no-brainer”.
He felt he should be more involved in the community, and this project
was just perfect for him. Now that he is thoroughly familiar with
the program he feels it is a wonderful thing and great for the community.
Jennifer Baird has been a Beach resident for 15 years and was also
looking to give back to the community. A friend told her about the
Out of the Cold Program, and she said “Sign me up”.
Once she realized that there was some initial controversy about
the program she became even more determined to help. Jennifer explained
that today there are so many volunteers in St. Aidan's program (over
100) that each one only needs to come out once a month. There has
been an amazing amount of neighbourhood support for this initiative.
During the daytime Jennifer works in sales, and in the evening
she participates in community choirs and spends time with family
and friends. She wanted to make time for community involvement,
and ever since she started she enjoys the interaction with the guests
of the Out of the Cold Program. Jennifer added she was quite open-minded
to begin with when she went into the project, but even so she was
pleasantly surprised by the nature of the program.
As far as the program is concerned, Jennifer explained that whoever
gets here first gets a spot for the night. Tonight for example the
12 spots were filled up by 4:30 pm. At that point the program has
to turn people away. The Out of the Cold program at St. Aidan’s
is extremely popular with guests since it serves some of the best
food in the city; in addition it is a small program with only twelve
spaces, an aspect that many guests enjoy. The quality of the food
makes a huge difference.
Jennifer herself describes her responsibilities as "hanging
out and talking to people". As the hostess, she has to direct
the guests, clean up and help with organization. She also gets to
play cards with the guests. One thing that is important, according
to Jennifer, is to have sensitivity to be able to tell when people
do and do not want to talk. Her years in sales have helped her recognize
that. Jennifer feels it is important to recognize that this project
is about the guests and their needs. Tonight for example she was
dead tired, and thought for a moment that she did not feel like
going out any more. But once she came to St. Aidan’s she enjoyed
herself and felt good that she had come out.
Beautiful stained glass window in the interior of St. Aidan's Church
Last but not least I was able to talk to Father Stephen Kirkegaard
himself. He explained that he was born in Montreal in a family with
a Danish background. He added he is supposedly related to Søren
Aabye Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian,
who is generally recognized as the first existentialist philosopher.
He was brought up in a religious home, was baptized and attended
Sunday school. But during his teen years he started to find the
church boring.
As a child of the 1960s he went to India and studied transcendental
meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In his youth he travelled
to Kenya and Zambia and also set up transcendental meditation centres.
Today he is excited about Christian meditation, one of the great
loves in his life. He enjoys teaching people how to be still and
centered, an important skill in this hectic and frenetic life of
ours. He adds “The heart is restless until it finds its rest
in God”.
Interestingly, Father Stephen Kirkegaard was not always a man of
God. For an entire decade of his life he was actually a businessman.
He sold automated data processing services and was a sales training
manager and a national training manager. Father Stephen values having
been part of the business world since it is the compass of our culture
of how we interpret the world. It certainly makes him understand
his parishioners better.
After a prolonged absence from the Church, Father Steven’s
interest in religion was rekindled in the 1980s. His fast-paced
corporate life was based on a philosophy of working hard and playing
hard, and he entered a serious life crisis: although he enjoyed
a lot of outer success he was experiencing a deep spiritual poverty,
even bankruptcy. He added his heart was “parched territory”.
While he was on a vacation with his wife he heard a voice “Go
to Church, you’ll find me there.”
He says it may sound crazy, but God had spoken to him. He had not
been to Church for about 15 years. And the little voice in his head
started a complete renaissance of his spiritual life. The young
man who had always had an interest in meditation was the same man
who rediscovered God; he was brought there by the same life currents.
His time in the business world was "a creative and necessary
detour".
When Father Stephen decided to go back to university for a Master
of Divinity degree he could not figure out how he was going to pay
for a four-year full-time university program. But as if through
divine intervention, his last year in business was formidable, and
he said “it just rained dollars”, and “the spirit
was at work”. All of a sudden there was this abundance that
was so overflowing it could not be accounted for by human effort
and intention.
St. Aidan's unique architectural style
In addition to Father Stephen’s personal background we started
talking about how the Out of the Cold Program at St. Aidan’s
came about. Father Stephen explained that a local parishioner, Dr.
Michael Chambers, a physician residing in the Beach but practicing
in Mississauga, had always had a real heart for those in need. He
has been volunteering one afternoon a week at the Yonge Street Mission
and wanted to do something similar in the Beach. Dr. Chambers and
Father Stephen took a walk along the Boardwalk and figured they
had a big building that they were heating anyways, and they were
seeing homeless people in various different locations. The question
came “Why don’t we just provide shelter for 12 men and
women for 12 nights a year during the winter months?”
Around Christmas of 2006 the congregation at St. Aidan’s
unanimously decided in favour of this initiative. Father Stephen
likens it to the Virgin Mary, who was homeless when she was pregnant
with Jesus and she was in need of shelter. He wanted to give the
gift of shelter to these 12 men and women and adds that Christ said
“As you treat the homeless so you are treating me.”
Father Stephen’s philosophy is that everyone should be treated
with dignity and respect, since all human beings are interrelated.
But he wanted the program to be compassionate not just to the homeless,
but also to the neighbours as he understood their concerns about
their children and their properties. He strongly felt “the
more people know the less they fear”. So he went ahead to
hold two open houses to introduce the community to the Church and
the proposed Out of the Cold Program. Father Stephen mentioned that
Maria Minna, the federal MP for the
Beaches-East York was instrumental in getting this program up and
running. Local City Councillor Sandra
Bussin’s help was critical in bringing in external consultants
called “Urban Intelligence” who are community and government
facilitators. They donated their time free of charge and helped
the community work through all the important issues and concerns
that surrounded the Out of the Cold Program. Father Stephen added
that he even got letters from a variety of law firms who were volunteering
their services pro bono.
From a historical point of view there is an interesting connection
between St. Aidan’s Church and an earlier church that was
operating in this area about 120 years ago. This tent church, which
became St. Aidan's, was founded by a man named H. Dixon who was
a life-long supporter of the homeless and the needy. After his death
in 1929 a soup kitchen was opened and named after Canon Dixon: today,
Dixon Hall is a downtown Toronto community centre whose programs
and services help people make major changes and improvements in
their lives and ultimately a better future for themselves.
The baptismal font at St. Aidan's Church
Part of Dixon Hall’s mission statement today is to help homeless
women and men find temporary shelter and employment opportunities
as they try to regain self-sufficiency. Dixon Hall has been instrumental
in helping St. Aidan’s Church create the Out of the Cold Program.
So ironically, Canon Dixon’s spirit of charity and his commitment
to the homeless, all of which started right here in the Beach more
than 100 years ago, has returned to the Beach in the form of the
Out of the Cold Program at St. Aidan’s Church. In his eloquent
way, Father Stephen mentioned that churches have personalities,
and that they undergo renewal. He is particularly happy about the
resurrection of the homeless program and Canon Dixon’s legacy,
especially considering the Church is approaching its 100th anniversary
in the fall.
As far as the practicalities of the Out of the Cold Program are
concerned, meals are generally provided by volunteers, but two local
restaurants have also pitched in their culinary services: Quigley’s
Pub and Bistro and the Beacher Café both regularly contribute
meals to the homeless, and the gastronomic reviews have been nothing
but outstanding. The coffee for the morning breakfast is donated
by the local Tim Horton’s down the road, evidence of the collaborative
effort put together by residents and local businesses alike.
We also touched on human cultures and that fact that we are truly
blessed in
Canada. Father Stephen recently ministered at the funeral of a woman,
a
former ESL teacher, who died in her eighties. She remembered growing
up in Berlin during and after WWII, begging for bread as she and
her sister were starving. In Canada she connected with an Afghani
woman who was a war refugee and extended her help to his New Canadian.
She had never forgotten her own experience of what it was like to
survive a war and treated this Afghani woman like her sister –
evidence that we are all interrelated.
Father Stephen added that the Church believes in a communion of
saints, and that all humans, living or dead, are interconnected.
According to him, science is finally catching up with spirituality
and proving the interdependence and interrelationship between all
matter. In our modern world many people have lost contact with this
fundamental truth of connectedness, and in the shadow of our developed
societies there is a lot of shallowness and poverty in the midst
of all our affluence.
For Father Stephen life as a priest is not a job, it is a gift
and a vocation. He does not consider himself to be an extraordinary
human being, he admits to having all the human faults that anyone
else might have. “Clergy are just like other people. They
just have a passion for the spiritual”. He added that living
a spiritual life does not require a human being to be ordained.
“You can live your love of God from the inside out and do
not need to be a cleric to do that.”
His “job” does not have hours, but he also tries to
live a reasonable life and not burn himself out. Today, as an example,
was his day off, but he still came to the church to help with the
Out of the Cold Program.
Tapestry depicting St. Aidan, by Doris McCarthy
I also asked Father Stephen Kirkegaard about his congregation and
he said it consists of about 400 people, 130 of whom are regularly
here on Sundays. The parish is multi-generational, and he loves
having children here. He refers to St. Aidan’s as a “village
church in the middle of a big city”. Although his family has
only lived here for about three years, he has fallen in love with
the Beach and calls it “a wonderful community”. Before
St. Aidan’s Father Stephen was the priest of the Anglican
Church in Cookstown, a real village. As far as his congregation
in the Beach is concerned, about half of his parishioners are long-term
Beach residents, and the other half moved here fairly recently.
What they share in common is a search for the spiritual.
On a personal level, Father Stephen has been married for 20 years
to his wife Sandy, and they have two adult children. He speaks very
fondly of his wife with whom he shares a strong emotional and spiritual
connection. What he enjoys about the Anglican Church is that it
treats men and women equally, and women have the right to be ordained.
One thing in the public’s response to the Out of the Cold
Program at St. Aidan’s surprised Father Stephen: the immense
sense of pride that local residents expressed, even when they were
not parishioners. They were genuinely delighted that a faith community
would walk the talk and start a significant charitable initiative
to help the less fortunate. His Church has received a lot of goodwill
from the community and the media for living out its spiritual message.
Just before our interview ended, Father Stephen took me into the
actual Church which features a beautiful vaulted ceiling and exquisite
stained glass windows. A baptismal font is located right in the
centre of the Church. Father Stephen took me into a side chapel
that features a gigantic tapestry by renowned Canadian artist Doris
McCarthy which pictures the historical backdrop of St. Aidan’s,
even Canon Dixon’s tent church is depicted. A diverse kaleidoscope
of parishioners adorns the left side of the tapestry. Father Stephen’s
favourite part is the rose-coloured church in the centre, the way
Doris McCarthy envisioned a church: warm, joyful and welcoming.
He also showed me a second tapestry by the same artist in the main
part of the Church, depicting St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle
of Northumbria who was the founder and first bishop of the monastery
on the island of Lindisfarne in England. Around 650 A.D. St. Aidan
travelled all over England on foot so he would easily be able to
talk to those he met. To make his job easier King Oswin gave him
a horse. St. Aidan immediately gave the horse away to a beggar which
made King Oswin upset. The king’s ire dissipated when St.
Aidan asked him if the son of a mare was more precious than a son
of God.
Tapestry by Doris McCarthy
With these wise words I bid adieu to Father Stephen who had welcomed
me so openly and cordially to his Church and the Out of the Cold
drop-in project. His friendly, engaging nature; the great new initiative
that is touching guests and volunteers alike; and the wisdom he
shared with me made me smile all the way home.
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