Belonging

In this episode of The Shadows We Cast, I sit down with Nikki Glahn, Founder and Executive Director of Barrie Families Unite, a grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring individuals and families have access to essential needs with dignity, compassion, and respect.

What began as a local Facebook group during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has grown into a powerful community-driven movement supporting people experiencing poverty, housing insecurity, illness, trauma, addiction, and other life-altering challenges. Through practical support, community connection, and a commitment to preserving dignity, Barrie Families Unite has become a lifeline for many in the Barrie area.

But this conversation is about more than community services.

It's about the role connection, dignity, and belonging play in our mental wellbeing—and how healing is often supported not only through professional care, but through the communities that surround us.

Together, Nikki and I explore the connection between poverty and mental health, the hidden toll of chronic stress and survival mode, and the ways community care can help restore hope when people feel isolated or overwhelmed. We discuss stigma, systemic gaps, the importance of meeting basic needs, and why belonging is far more than a feeling—it can be a powerful form of healing.

This conversation is a reminder that mental health doesn't exist separately from the conditions people are trying to survive inside of. Safety matters. Stability matters. Dignity matters. And sometimes the most meaningful support comes from knowing you're not alone.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The origins of Barrie Families Unite during the pandemic
• The connection between poverty, chronic stress, and mental health
• Why dignity matters when people are seeking support
• How community care can become a powerful mental health intervention
• The hidden realities of survival mode and financial insecurity
• Reducing stigma around asking for help
• Building sustainable systems of support that strengthen communities
• Why belonging can be a powerful part of healing

About Nikki Glahn

Nikki Glahn is a community-driven leader, creative thinker, and advocate for purpose-led work. Nikki brings clarity, compassion, and strategic vision to projects she leads. She is known for her ability to build meaningful connections, translate big ideas into practical action, and guide teams through growth with integrity and care.

Rooted in a deep belief in equity, sustainability, and community wellbeing, her leadership style is collaborative and people-centred, balancing structure with creativity and accountability with empathy.

Nikki is committed to creating environments where people feel empowered and respected.

She is a proud mom of 2 amazing humans, a wife to one lucky guy and a dog mama to our furry family member. She enjoys travel, camping, curling, skiing, hiking and spending time with people who fill her cup!

Connect with Barrie Families Unite

Website: www.barriefamiliesunite.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barriefamiliesunite/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrie-families-unite-b752872a1/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@teambfu2939

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Transcript

 PODCAST:                The Shadows We Cast

EPISODE:                   Belonging

NUMBER:                   Season 2, Episode 9

HOST:                        Jenn St John

GUEST:                       Nikki Glahn, Barrie Families Unite

LENGTH:                    00:51:53

TRANSCRIPT:           

Nikki  00:01

I feel like belonging is such an important part of our fundamental feeling of safety, of giving us hope and purpose, and I think that we need to be seen. It's important part to feel like we're being seen and we're being chosen, and that in our vulnerable times we're not invisible. Vulnerability shouldn't be seen as a weakness. Giving help isn't necessarily seen as charity, it's just part of being a human and part of being a community.

Jenn St John  00:30

Hello, and welcome to The Shadows We Cast, a podcast about what we carry, the impact we leave, and the messy, beautiful reality of mental health. I'm Jen St. John, a writer, business owner, and a mental health advocate, who grew up in a family shaped by mental illness. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it darkly funny, and all of it shaped who I am today. Here, we're going to share honest conversations, stories from me, from you, and from those who have walked this road in different ways, through journal entries, letters from my mom, and real conversations. We're going to pull back the layer on mental health, the tough parts, the moments that shaped us, and how we move forward together. So, grab a coffee, settle in, and let's talk. Before we begin, just a quick note. This episode includes adult themes, including addiction, mental illness, trauma, and suicidal ideation. Please take care in choosing when and where you listen, especially if you're in a sensitive place or you have little ones around. I also want to gently remind you that I am not a mental health professional, the conversations you hear on this podcast are grounded in lived experience, mine and the stories generously shared by others. My reflections, questions, and opinions come from that place and not from clinical training. Our goal here is connection, not diagnosis, and this is a space for real stories, honest conversations, and the hope that in hearing them you might feel a little less alone, so for today's episode I have called this one belonging. So much of how we talk about mental health focuses on the individual, on our coping mechanisms, our diagnoses, our healing journeys, but what often gets left out of the conversation is the role community plays in whether people feel supported, seen, safe, or completely alone. Because healing doesn't only happen in therapy rooms or hospitals. Sometimes it happens when someone helps carry your groceries, or when a child gets a winter coat that actually fits. When a struggling parent is met with dignity instead of judgment, when people choose to show up for one another in small, consistent, and human ways. My guest today is Nikki Glahn. She is the founder of Berry Families Unite. It is a grassroots organization built on the belief that community care can change lives. What began during the uncertainty and isolation of the pandemic as a local Facebook group quickly evolved into something much larger, a network of support helping families across the community access food, clothing, household essentials, and maybe most importantly, a sense of dignity and belonging. Nikki is a thoughtful and deeply community-minded leader, whose work is rooted in compassion, collaboration, and the belief that people deserve to be respected and supported, especially during the hardest seasons of their lives. In this conversation, we talk about the connection between poverty and mental health, the emotional toll of surviving a crisis in crisis mode, the stigma that people carry when asking for help, and the powerful ways human connection itself can become a form of healing. Here's my conversation with Nikki. So, we always start each episode with an excerpt from a journal or a letter between myself and my mom. So, today, for this discussion, I wanted to start with an excerpt from one of Mom's journals. All I ever wanted was for the pain from the past to stop interfering with my life and my happiness in the present. I forgave because that's what I needed to do, to feel whole, to like myself, and to rid myself of the emotional baggage that was weighing me down and holding me back. I wanted peace of mind, and I couldn't have that as long as I was tangled in unfinished business from the past, expending most of my energy nursing unhealed wounds. I wasn't happy with myself or my life, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could do more and be more than I was. So I chose to heal. So many of us carry that same longing, the desire to be lighter, to be steadier, and to feel more whole, not because we want to become someone new, but because we're tired of surviving. We talk a lot about healing as something personal, something that we're meant to do quietly, privately, and often on our own.

Jenn St John  04:51

But the truth is, healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in relationship, it happens when someone meets us where we're at, when. Dignity is restored, and when care shows up, not just in words, but in actions, and that's what today's conversation is about. I am so glad to welcome Nikki. Her work is a powerful example of what mental health support can look like when it's embedded in community care, when compassion becomes tangible and connection itself becomes medicine. Nikki, thank you very much for being here.

Nikki  05:23

Thank you so much for having me.

Jenn St John  05:25

So, I wanted to begin kind of back at the beginning. So, when you founded Barry Families Unite in 2020 the whole world was in a moment of deep uncertainty, and there was a lot of fear and isolation, and there was so much instability at that time, when you decided to do this, what do you feel the emotional state of the community was like? How did you see that fear and that loneliness affecting people?

Nikki  05:49

We launched the Families Unite Facebook group march 14 of 2020 So we're really at the cusp of the pandemic, that was a Saturday, and I remember it quite vividly, because sometimes you do something that seems kind of minor, but the moment you do it, you think to yourself, there's this little fleeting thing going, uh, oh, what have I just done? Like, you just have this instinctual feeling that maybe you've set something in motion that's bigger than what you maybe thought it was going to be, so that for me was, I had that moment, it was a fleeting moment, and it wasn't a fear or panic, but it was like, is this gonna blow up, and it did, but it was right at the very beginning, so kind of grew with the community through all the different phases that the pandemic brought out in people emotionally, we were listening to the radio and addicted to social media and news because it was changing by the hour in those first days, weeks. There was definitely a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anxiety around that uncertainty. For many of us, most of us that are alive today, we had never experienced anything like this, something that was hitting the globe. It just felt surreal. And then, as time went on, I felt that because it wasn't just, oh yeah, your kids are staying home from school for two weeks. Remember, it was right at the beginning of the spring break, so, oh yeah, take your stuff home in case they're going to be home an extra week, okay? Like, we could wrap our heads around two weeks, but then when you became months and then became years, that's when I think you saw the fear, the loneliness, just a feeling of being isolated, and it differed depending on people's circumstances. For sure, not everyone faced Covid through the same lens that we did, or that I did, or that anyone did. We definitely bore witness to that through the Facebook group, and the whole purpose of that group really was holding space. That was really the baseline purpose of Barry Families Unite. In the beginning, was we made it a Facebook group, not a page, although we do have a page now, but the group aspect really was to allow for the ability for people to engage and communicate and participate, and it wasn't meant to be information out, it was meant to be information shared, and collectively, how we can support each other. We kind of felt like our job as moderators and administrators of the group was to ensure that space was a safe one. If people were being judgmental or being unkind, and maybe diverting off of the point of somebody's post that wasn't meant to be a platform for debate, and we made sure that from the beginning we only reposted posts that came from public health officials, whether it was the WHO or the Simcoe County Public Health, just to try and bave off the craziness that can happen on social media, right? The noise, right? There

Jenn St John  08:44

was a lot of noise that was happening at that point. So it definitely feels like you're creating a safe space, you're obviously providing information, and a lot of emotional support, I'm sure, for people during that time. So, did you start to see that people were needing more than just that, like it was going beyond what your thoughts were for the group.

Nikki  09:03

Well, it happened quite quickly, actually, that it was more than just a place to share information, because with all that the pandemic entailed, and the unknowns of the virus, and people who had compromised systems not wanting to go out and necessarily risk themselves or their kids, or maybe they were a caregiver for an elderly, all those different things, so it very quickly became a physical need for people as well. If they couldn't physically get their medications picked up from the drugstore, or even go grocery shopping safely, and this is what happened at the very beginning. People who relied on charitable agencies, they had to switch their entire programming model, because all of a sudden, what they used to be able to do was no longer deemed safe, right? So there just was some gaps in time where people were just kind of left in limbo, and to no fault of anybody at all, it just was the state of it. So it really was this, in my opinion, a beautiful moment or opportunity for every. Everyday citizens in our community to step up and step in because of the space and because of the timing of launching the Facebook group, it grew exponentially. I think we had 6000 people in the group within the first week, 15,000 probably within months, and it was a very active space, so you don't want to necessarily bear your whole story to the community at large, PM or DM, one of our administrators, and we played the in-between kind of person who would put the situation up in their words and then facilitate the helpers coming in with the help and getting it to the person who needed, so that was the beginning of things, this very Famous Unite.

Jenn St John  10:40

Yeah, I was gonna say that's the beginning of where you guys have gone now, right? And so, what were some of those needs that you were seeing? People like, what was coming up for

Nikki  10:49

food was a big one for people who couldn't access what they relied on different agency supports for food, and those agencies were figuring their new path forward out, so we were doing porch food drops that were being coordinated, and then I remember I believe it was early May of 2020 and because we had the volume of traffic and people commenting and posting, we could see trends, and what we saw happening was that there was a demographic of people who were maybe used to being able to go and get their kids new summer clothes that they needed, they'd outgrown their shorts and their tank tops and their flip flops. They could go to the thrift stores and buy those things, but the retail stores at that point in time were closed, so the demographic that had the financial means were going online and ordering clothes online from Old Navy or wherever, and having clothes delivered to their homes, so that was their spand-aid solution. But there was a lot of people that that's not an option for, for many reasons, but financial being the biggest one, right? So that was our first foray, and we had a lit at a small location that gave us some space, and we had people drop off their children's clothing in the morning, and the space was adjacent to a laundromat, so we went in and we put everything in a hot wash and then a hot dryer, because we didn't know a lot about the virus at that point in time. We went back into, said a drop off space, and we had boxes and bins, and we put everything by size, and we had opened up, like, a Google form for people who needed things to put in a request and give us the sizes and genders of clothing they were looking for, and then we matched from those bins and had people go do pork drops again. So that was, yeah, that was one of our first iterations of clothing these, and what has become a major element of our programming still to this day is affordable slash free in many cases access to nice clean clothing. Yeah,

Jenn St John  12:48

so here it is. It's May 2020 and you guys are obviously bringing in a large amount of the community are coming together on your Facebook page, and there's all of these needs that you're hearing that are coming up. How did you get through the rest of the year? Like, what did it look like by the end of 2020

Nikki  13:06

There's a running joke that EFU, as it became known, its acronym, it was a constantly more feast on the daily for those that were volunteering and being administrators and moderators of the group. We had this shared logbook that anyone who had been on that day and had monitored certain situations or issues, or okay, let's make a decision that will allow these types of posts. We're trying to be as consistent as we could as a front-facing Facebook group for the community. It was evolving, and we pivoted literally daily. It felt like for that first year, and to be honest I'm a little vague on exactly where we were by the end of 2020 but I know that by April of 2021 that's when we officially incorporated ourselves as a not for profit, so what was happening in that time frame was there were pockets of time where we were we're starting to get back to work and getting back to their more regular routines and what that

Jenn St John  14:02

kids were in and out of school,

Nikki  14:04

and so what kind of happened was we lost a little bit of that base of community that was able to jump up and go and get some groceries and drop them off. However, we hadn't lost their eyeballs or their compassion or their empathy, so they would see the post and like, listen, I'm running to work, but I can e-transfer you some money, so that it can go towards buying whatever the situation required, which was fantastic, but at the time, because we were just a grassroots group, that meant they were literally e-transferring myself, Nikki Gland, to my bank account. So now I had an Excel spreadsheet, and I was tracking incoming donations, and then people were shopping, and I was transferring them to cover the bill that they would send me a photo of, and it was fine, and it was functioning, but as that pot of money was growing, I started to feel more uncomfortable, and it started to feel like this needs to be more transparent, and we need to like legitimize this, and I think the other thing that probably was happening during that time. Same frame, and had happened during that first year of our existence was we really did have a front row seat to a lot of the agencies that exist in our community, and what they were doing, and how they were servicing people, and honestly I was in awe of what we do have in our community in terms of support systems, however every agency needs to have their boundaries of what they do and how they do it, so that they can function. And due to the volume of people engaged in our online Facebook group, we were able to see where the repetition of people falling through cracks was occurring. Yeah, right. Wasn't like a singular one off, and we're like, oh, we need to create a program to fix it. It was multiple times upon multiple times, and we're like, okay, this seems to be a trend, so there obviously is a flag here that would say, you know, this needs maybe some additional support or another agency to kind of pick up those gap pieces, and that really we used the word gap a lot in our early days, because when we wrote our mandate, we thought it was important to me to not overlap, to be, you know, duplicate services, but rather to complement and fill gaps in between services. A lot of energy goes into running a charity, and it doesn't make sense to me to put that same amount of energy into fundraising and all the things that go into making a charity operational, to just offer the exact same thing someone else is already doing.

Jenn St John  16:24

Yeah, it's good to be collaborative and supportive and not competitive, right? There's only so many funds that you guys can even get access to. Yeah, so then what were some of those gaps that you were noticing

Nikki  16:36

when we established our mandate? We identified three columns of support that we were going to focus on, with an overarching mandate to ensure that everyone in our community had dignified access to essential needs, which we defined as column number one, access to fresh produce, groceries, if you will, with a caveat that we're augmenting what the very food bank was already doing, so when people applied in the food category, we did ask, you're receiving support from the very food bank, and we really wanted that answer to be yes, because they are the primary place you should be going to get your food report. What we wanted to do was capture those individuals to their food insecurity levels were to such a degree that once they had consumed or eaten through the amount they can get on a 30 day cycle from the Berry Food Bank, that they were once again completely food insecure. You know, for some people what they get from the food bank is fills that little bit of a budget hole, but there's other situations, and that number is growing of people who, with the cost increases in rent and in utilities and food and everything, that you know the numbers just don't work. So we were there to capture them and just kind of give them a buffer of extra import. We got heavily involved with Good Food Box program that's run by the Urban Pantry here in Barrie, and I think at one point we were their largest bulk purchaser of Good Food Boxes, so we had people apply to get a monthly Good Food Box from through the BFU charity name, and and still do have a whole monthly system of organizing deliveries of that 20 pound bag of fresh produce once a month. The second column that we noticed was access to appropriate seasonal clothing. We live in the geographical area where we experience the highs and lows of seasons, and you know you can't get away with a pair of shorts and the flip flop for 12 months a year here, so having appropriate seasonal clothing is an essential need for people to be able to function properly, send their kids to school themselves to work, etc. So that was a glaring gap, and probably there was good reason for it. Getting our foot into the clothing game of support, it's a beast. There's a lot of elements to clothing, if you think about what we put on our bodies, just for one person, for one season, and then you think of creamy babies who need it for this size, and our five XL humans in multiple genders, it does a lot of moving parts, but because of what we're doing and how we're doing it, we experienced such tremendous outpouring from the community of support with donations, so that combined with working collaboratively with another agency, Christmas cheer, in this case, who we subleased 1000 square foot warehouse space from, allowed us the geographical ability to have all those moving pieces properly organized, and by the time we were in the thick of it, we could outfit a preemie baby to that five xl human any seq closing within hours. It was incredible what the team had been able to put together and keep organized, but it's a lot, and a third column of support we called situational. Crisis support, and what that meant to us, to our charity, was for the most part 80% of aid under situational crisis support was in the form of start over kicks, so there's many, many, many a reason why individuals are facing situations where they kind of are restarting their lives, and it can be anything from fires, bed bugs, domestic violence, getting evicted from a house, and having to temporarily end up in a shelter, and then getting low-income housing. So every time you're in those situations, you're often losing your personal belongings, and then you know, hopefully land somewhere where you get that opportunity to start again, but to restock your linen cloth, that to restock your kitchen with all the stuff you need to make it functioning, that's a lot of money, and the beauty of the program had was so many people cycle through that stuff, and it's still good stuff, or people pass on, you know.

Nikki  21:03

We have a lot of people that came to our warehouse, having just lost a mom or a dad, downsizing, they're moving from the family home into, you know, long-term care, and so we were the benefactors of complete pot and pan sets and towels and linen that were in great shape, and had lots of life left in them, so really we were just the in-between conduit to, you know, take those items in, sort through them, they're not all good stuff, but all good stuff we got, and be able to package that up and share it with people who really need it and really appreciate newcomers, that's another category of humans that land in our community with a suitcase or two full of items, and many of them not prepared for our winter, so and then it

Jenn St John  21:48

was last year that you guys decided to find a more permanent spot.

Nikki  21:55

Yeah, well, it was late last year, so we opened the middle of November, but it was a work in progress, so it was definitely a year plus of planning for this next evolution of how to better provide our program to the public, and one of our key motivation factors was the way that the program evolved and how we were delivering items from the warehouse. It was really a fulfillment style warehouse situation,

Jenn St John  22:22

so it wasn't public facing, it was internal,

Nikki  22:24

occasional pop-up shops. Those pop-up shops, too, were probably a great window into what it felt like and looked like to provide that client-forward program model. The excitement of not just the kids, but the adults, as well, to come in and try on a winter coat and pick their own color, you know, as opposed to a volunteer in a warehouse.

Jenn St John  22:47

Yeah,

Nikki  22:47

I think a lot of our self-esteem and our identity comes from what we choose to present ourselves as, and a lot of that is, you know, what we choose to wear, and I think there's a lot of power in people being able to have a say in that. So we got a little bit of glimpse of that when we had our pop-up shops.

Jenn St John  23:04

Yeah, and dignity too. I mean, my gosh, yeah,

Nikki  23:08

yeah, which is why we called our seed funding campaign, as we were fundraising to get the door open to public-facing thrift store. We called it the doors to dignity, help us open those doors to dignity. It was definitely a massive transition in our whole way of operations, but we knew that the end result, and I don't even think we're there yet, because we're not near to scale in the space we're in currently, that we need to be to be able to be helping the volume of people we're helping in our previous model, we've unfortunately one of the sometimes side effects of growth is you have to contract in a little bit before you can fully expand outward to full scale and full capacity. The other thing that had happened in our journey was a number of agencies in our community had heard of our services and began referring their clients to us. When I did our annual general report for 2024 2025 the count of agencies that have referred to us during that fiscal year was 36 different agencies had been at some point throughout the year, either multiple times or one offs, but many of them on the weekly were sending clients to us to help support their clients with the base essential needs, so that that element of their mental support and well-being is hopefully less than they have the capacity then to do the other work that those maybe agencies are specifically focused on, whether that was mental health or trauma or addictions, just getting back in the workforce, like so many different agencies, right?

Jenn St John  24:47

Yeah, the clients that you're supporting, and those 36 agencies are supporting, everybody is navigating such tricky things in life, just your basic needs are trying to be met, let alone addiction or mental health or. Or trauma, and those carry a lot of stigma as well, not just on a daily basis, but on a societal level as well. So, from your perspective, what do you feel are the most misunderstood truths about people who are living in these circumstances?

Nikki  25:17

I think sometimes people think that they're failures on the part of people, where in reality they're just circumstances, and there's sometimes a series of them. The other thing I think that happens a lot of times is people don't always think that these people are trying to get themselves out of that situation, and so many times I wish that for one day if they could come into our volunteer circle, listen to the stories that our intake volunteers listen to when they're receiving the request for support. People would be surprised and humbled by the sometimes series of circumstances that fall onto an individual, a family, a situation, and sometimes it's often no fault of their own, like if you're living in a financial bracket where money's tight, and then you get yourself or a child who gets the unfortunate card of some sort of chronic illness or serious illness that puts your whole world upside down, while your focus is on getting them the proper care. You might have to take time off work, you might have to leave your job. Sorry, I got goosebumps just thinking about how traumatic and stressful it can be when you're living those situations. One of the things I often will do when I'm presenting to service clubs or groups is a client simulation to hopefully bring a little bit of perspective to people who live in a different set of circumstances. The client simulation that we base it on is a client of ours, we've changed the name, but a mom of two kids whose partner passed away through a workplace tragedy and no life insurance, so now she, you know, the sole provider for two kids. I was working relatively minimum wage type job, and then that company later off due to economic situations that have been going on the past couple years. So now she's relying on OW. We give the people when we're doing these simulations the number of what that support looks like in dollars. This is how much she gets, and she's got two kids, she gets this. Then there's some rebates you can get for your heat, and you get your child benefits and stuff like that. We put all that into the factor, and we get the baseline amount that she has for the month, and I know the amount is $2,655 because I've done the simulation so much, and then so we actually give it to them in Monopoly money in an envelope, like this is what you have. Then you flip the card over, and okay, here's what average rent price is for a two-bedroom apartment, nothing fancy. Here's what utilities are. She needs a bus pass, she can get around the kids, get free bus passes in Barrie, which is great. You need a basic phone plan and internet plan to survive in this world. She's applying for jobs, her kids are at school, she needs to be able to communicate, so those are necessities, and those will have price tags associated to them, because we can take the average price that are generated from statistics, and so they're doling out the money out of the little envelope, and then it's like, okay, so haven't yet left in the envelope, and they pull it out, and they're like, hey, $60 I'm like, okay, and what haven't we bought yet? They're like, wait, you haven't gotten groceries yet, no, you haven't gotten a single grocery, let alone at any birthday party that's come up or any illness you gotta buy meds, like that's just a month going tickety boo. How often do our months go tickety boo when we have two kids in tow? Right, like

Jenn St John  28:50

yeah, absolutely.

Nikki  28:52

Stress load on that single mama is intense.

Jenn St John  28:55

Well, you're constantly just in survival mode, you're fight or flight every single day. I mean, that was my mom, four kids, often single parent, and my mom was dealing with addiction and mental health issues, and we were definitely, depending on the situation we were in, there was lots of poverty. So, yeah, it's a great exercise for people to try to have some insight, but also some compassion. But, yeah, to be in that mama's shoes every day is a struggle. It's a big struggle.

Nikki  29:23

Those are the situations where having community step in it provides a renewed sense of hope at a like cellular level for those people. I'm seeing somebody isn't judging my set of circumstances, they're just seeing me for where I'm at, and one of the things we've been very mindful of is not forcing people to prove their need for something, and I think a lot of agencies have transitioned because I think it causes a lot of damage when people have to dig into the story over and over again to tell automatic reasons why they need support, just. Trust, they're reaching out for help. You got to trust that they need it. You know, one of the things I've said to volunteers over the years, many, many times over, is because of our trust. Are there instances that have perhaps happened where people have taken advantage of that trust? Maybe, but that number, if anything, is going to be less than 10% of the times that we're helping, so if we're going to let that deter us or harden our hearts, because of the 90% that really actually need it and legitimately were grateful for that experience,

Jenn St John  30:36

yeah,

Nikki  30:36

are going to miss out on us being there for them because we've allowed the small minority to tarnish a good thing, so

Jenn St John  30:44

yeah, because you're moving the needle for the 90% in a really big way. Your experience now over these last several years, where are the gaps still? I mean, obviously we've gone from pandemic, which was really difficult, to now we're in a very economically low time. Where are the gaps still?

Nikki  31:04

Well, this question could go on to a number of levels, macro, micro. Let's not get political.

Jenn St John  31:10

We could keep it, we could keep it like micro, and let's keep

Nikki  31:13

it focused on what words you mean. I don't think the gaps have changed. I'd like to think we made a dent in those gaps, I know if I draw upon some stats, and I haven't done them lately, but I know at some point last year we had crossed over $1.5 million in essential needs that we had distributed for free. I think maybe there are some gaps still in the community's understanding of the importance of what we're doing, so the one thing I've been talking to a bit lately is that is akin to what the very food bank is in scope and scale, and I say that because food insecurity, which we know is at an all-time high, mirrors essential needs insecurity, so if you have a family, if you think of your important things you need to do to provide for your loved ones, you will need to put them in a warm, safe place, so housing, you need to feed them daily, and if our food banks are experiencing that level of need and crisis level of people, if that's second in line, where does proper winter boots that your kids have outgrown from last year, where does toiletries, feminine hygiene for your teenager, deodorant, cleaning supplies for your home to keep your home clean, so that you feel like you're living in a healthy, happy, safe, clean place. All those things are after food, but they're essential needs. They're essential to our mental and physical well-being, so I think that might be like this is a bit more of a less of a physical gap, but you're talking, we're talking more of a philosophical gap, but I think that part of my drum that I'm trying to beat right now is sharing that message to our community that the work we're trying to do needs to scale up because we're operating out of a space probably a quarter of the size that we need to in order to properly welcome back those 36 agencies to utilize us again. We had to send out a really tough email back in October to say we're changing our trajectory, we're changing our programming model. We said it out loud, short term pain for long term gain, because we could not open a brand new store, figure out how to run a store, because this is all new to our community model as well. So all those factors and elements that are new to us, and at the same time, welcome the public. We need the public to come and shop at our store, so that we can maintain our overheads, which are not a lot.

Jenn St John  33:43

Get some revenue. Yep,

Nikki  33:44

rent is not cheap in this community. And then on top of that, also be able to open the space and have the capacity handle referrals from 36 agencies. It just wasn't feasible, so we had to have pick a couple to start with, and we've already grown from that couple, and we will continue to grow, and as we feel we have the flow traffic from the store, as well as the inventory available to make sure that we have enough on the racks for people buying and people that are shopping on store credit, which we do. We have been super blessed with the community rallying behind what we're doing, and the donations coming through our front doors are incredible, again, problem being we just don't have the space to start. Also,

Jenn St John  34:29

yeah, so your work definitely shows that the connection that you guys have with your clients and with the community isn't just physical, it's also very emotional, and that connection is very therapeutic. How have you seen human connection itself act as a mental health intervention?

Nikki  34:45

We've seen it throughout the journey of BFU. I think human connection, even though it was in the beginning via social media, Facebook, which some people might argue isn't connection, but when that's all you have and that's all we have at the time. It was, and we did a fair bit of media at that time, and I remember saying, like, I honestly felt that I had the best, quote unquote, job, because I woke up every day, and I went into this platform where I saw the best of humanity in action, day in, day out, day in, day out, people needed something, somebody jumped in and helped, there's so much hope in that, like, okay, yeah, we're going through a tough time, but we can do this together. We're so much stronger when we act together. So that was the beginning, and now the warehouse model, in actuality, didn't put us in a lot of direct contact with our end users of our services, because it was literally only the volunteers who are the delivery drivers that had any interaction with them, aside from our intake volunteers, and when we did our pop-up shops, but we definitely got a ton of emails, text messages after, you know, something would be dropped off, the gratitude and the release feel like you could feel people's shoulders dropping because of the relief of not having to worry about making sure that they had those essential needs or the newcomers who were able to make their kitchen function and linens for all their beds in the house and all that stuff, so yeah, that human connection part I think is always been part of what BFU is all about our tagline is community caring for community, and one of the things I've always wanted to make sure as we evolve is that we still have that door open for the community to feel like they're able to impact in a positive way the lives of other people in their community. I think that's the beauty too of this thrift store, and why we've seen such a flooding of support and donations is because once people understand the model and they know that yet some of these things they're donating to us are going to be sold and people are going to pay for them as a not-for-profit thrift store. All of our profitability goes into our programming and our ability to build that amount of money, so we can afford a bigger space, so we can help more people come in and shop for free. It's so rewarding when we actually got it open, and then to have had two initial agencies that we collaborated with, because they utilized us so much as a referral partner, where the Women and Children's Shelter and Redwood Park communities, but to have now actually transitioned into this, and have those clients showing up, coming through our doors, shopping, the simple act of getting out into the community, interacting with other people in the store, or our volunteers on the floor, having a laugh over how fast the kids are growing up, and oh gosh, yeah, he's already into size 40. I can't believe it.

Jenn St John  37:44

Yep,

Nikki  37:46

it's healing, yeah, healing. It's again that sense of connectivity, that sense of hope, that sense of belonging, feeling like you're part of something bigger than what you're going through by yourself in that moment, right?

Jenn St John  38:00

Yeah, absolutely. Feel less alone. One of the things I wanted to ask you is that for someone who is listening, who needs help, who could be a client BFU, what are the steps that they have to take?

Nikki  38:11

So that's one of the unfortunate parts of our new model, is people used to be able to self-refer on top of those 36 agencies. We have the ability of people to self-refer. We have just received a small bit of funding from one of the local service clubs, so we have a little bit of an acute emergency needs pot, so if someone is in dire situations, they can reach out to us via email and go to our Buried Families unite.com and contact us, and we will do our best to accommodate that acute needs as capacity scales, so will our ability to help more people. The other element in our store model that we have made as a important philosophy of the store, if you will, is that we knew there was going to be some unfortunate, uncomfortable growth periods for agencies that have relied on us, for those people who self referred to us, so the one thing that we have done from the moment we opened our doors was drive to be the most reasonably priced thrift store in town, so part of our process before we launched was doing a complete business plan, complete competitive analysis, focus groups, and through all of that, the thing we learned time and time again is that even people who are active thrifters, they're like, it's crazy what's happened to the prices at the thrift stores lately. So our philosophy is we want to do our best at all times to provide the best possible pricing for those essential needs items, and why wouldn't we, if the donations are coming in to us, $0 let's get them into the hands of people that need them. Obviously, we need to find that balance point, because we do need to cover expenses, and we need to exist, and that's just a fact of life. But we are a volunteer-run organization, we're in the process of hiring a store manager, because. It's the realities of actually operating a business have proven that it's just too much on top of everything else that we're trying to do in terms of scaling and everything else, so we need somebody focused on making the day to day decisions and the in-store stuff, but we are keeping our prices total, and just as one example, we have had so many winter coat for kids donated, and so for the last three weekends in a row we have been able to promote that all kids winter jackets, snow pants, winter boots $1

Jenn St John  40:34

Oh my gosh, Nikki,

Nikki  40:36

no, you can't. So if I can segue into this, this is an example of how our decision to keep our pricing where it's at is families in the low economic area that they have the ability to do this. So, here's a message we got just the other weekend. Hi, happy Sunday. I just wanted to reach out and say thank you. I already left a five-star Google review, but for privacy, didn't want to include too many details in said review. I'm a low-income solo parent, and in the short time that you've been open, you've honestly helped my son and I so much. I was able to buy a few winter coats for my son for the upcoming years for just $1 and yesterday a brand new pair of winter boots for him for $1 Every time I leave your store, I feel so grateful and relieved that I'm able to provide him with the things he needs, because the reality is you're not just providing goods at ridiculously reasonable prices, but being able to get things so affordably frees up money for things like groceries and doing things with my son and even sometimes for myself because my needs still matter too. This all makes such a huge difference for me and my boy. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate you so very much, and can't wait to come in again. Have an amazing day. I cook out the individual's name, but I copied and pasted that message almost immediately to our entire volunteer team, and just said, this is our why. The relief she feels when she leaves the store, knowing she can provide for her son the things he needs.

Jenn St John  42:15

Yeah,

Nikki  42:16

that's a gift.

Jenn St John  42:17

Yeah, that's so, so big, and it's such an example of one person, you starting something, seeing a gap, seeing a hole, just seeing that you know, even in 2020 obviously you didn't know we were going to be here, but just realizing that something had to be done, there had to be some way to help, some way to make things better, which is amazing,

Nikki  42:39

I've always been someone who really gravitates to connecting people. I love that sense of I know this person, I know this person, I know that together they need to meet, because something good will come out of it. I don't know what, maybe it comes with it from my journey in life, having relocated. I'm from out west, my husband, I started our lives together as a married couple in Winnipeg, so building community for me has been a full-time job all my life, and I maybe just subconsciously know there's so much value and so much power in having that when you're so far removed. I do have a great support system with my own family, they're just physically not close by. I know they're there for me if I need them, but having that community to surround you on your day-to-day journey through life as a mom, as a wife, as an entrepreneur, that's what keeps you grounded. That's what keeps your sanity intact on days, though it's such an important piece. Have that element. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate the compliment, but it definitely been a massive amount of people that have come together and believed in the vision, and absolutely stood by the vision through some pretty tough years of keeping us afloat and keeping our doors open, and really truly believe the new path we're on is the key for us for long-term sustainability as well.

Jenn St John  44:03

I know that's important to you. That's the goal, is to not just exist off of funding grants. It was to become a sustainable parity, so that you guys could look at those long goals that you have. Yeah, so how can people support BFU? I know for the store to have donations, but what other ways can the community support be a few?

Nikki  44:23

I do think we're at a critical juncture, and going back to what you talked about, some of the gaps sharing the vision of what we're trying to build in terms of scope and scale of this store. We're currently in 2000 square feet, we feel we probably need to be minimum six, but probably more like 8000 square feet, so that we have the space and the geography. We don't even have things out on our store that are essential needs. We don't have any room to display linens, so we have a fine saying we have linen, so that when our clients come in, we can go and grab those things. We don't have anywhere to put maternity wear, we have nowhere to put steel toed boots, like we have so many other elements, so. Workwear shop that 1000 square feet, it includes the retail space, as well as our sorting, donation, overflow, etc. Right. So, it's very cramped. So, yeah, I think having people help us ramp up that food insecurity, mirroring essential needs and security idea, and the reality that that is a truth would be great help to our cause, to our momentum going forward. So, whether that having an invite to speak to groups, whether they're service clubs or clubs, or whomever, I'm willing to come and chat to anybody to share the vision. Yeah,

Jenn St John  45:33

yeah, like on an education basis as well, of just what's going on in the community.

Nikki  45:40

We have store hours, we're open four of the seven days in a week. We'd like to expand that, but we can only do that based on volunteer capacity. So people are interested in volunteering. Our shifts in the storefront are only at the moment three and a half hours, so if they have three and a half hours every couple weeks and they want to put their name down for a shift and come and help either in the front end or the back end with our sorting, that's a huge help for us too.

Jenn St John  46:05

So, when you think about everything that we've talked about today, we've talked about dignity and connection and the choice to keep showing up, which is what you and everybody at BFU is doing. What does it mean to belong to a community that refuses to look away?

Nikki  46:20

I think that it really means a lot to a lot of people. For some people, probably means the world to them. I feel like belonging is such an important part of our fundamental feeling of safety, of feeling, of giving us hope and purpose. And I think that we need to be seen. It's important part to feel like we're being seen and we're being chosen, and that in our vulnerable times we're not invisible. Vulnerability shouldn't be seen as a weakness, part of being human. And I think it's important that that vulnerability isn't seen as a weakness, and that giving help isn't necessarily seen as charity. It's just part of being a human and part of being a community, and I think it heals individuals, and it heals us as a collective when we refuse to look away, when we continue to meet people where they're at, and see them, and look at them eye to eye, and maybe we can't fix everything, but we're not going to pretend we don't see it, we don't have to bear the burden of feeling, we have to fix everything, but you need to validate that it's there, and I think those things take courage sometimes, and it's not always easy to stand amidst a busy, chaotic situation, but I think when you do stand there and choose compassion and choose empathy, you really do become part of something that's powerful and beyond yourself, and it's coming back to you at the same time. So,

Jenn St John  47:46

absolutely,

Nikki  47:47

yeah, I think that's really what we are built on. It's a refusal to look away, and whether it's our volunteers, our partners, or the people we serve, we're all in this together. And yeah, I think it's important we remind ourselves and each other, that even on our hardest days, you're not alone, and you should never feel alone. I think that's probably a lot of where the joy comes from. Our team is being that sometimes for each other, as we sometimes navigate fatigue in doing what we're doing, being able to talk about that, share that, but then to get messages like the one I shared with you earlier, just reminds us all that we're providing what we're doing, and for them showing up and committing to what their VFU vision is, they're ensuring that that mom isn't alone, that she is feeling seen.

Jenn St John  48:35

Yeah, yep,

Nikki  48:35

and valued.

Jenn St John  48:36

I think that's the biggest. We talked about it earlier as well. That's one of my biggest mantras. Reason why I talk about mental health as well is to not feel alone. I mean, for somebody to not feel alone, that support is immeasurable, as you say. So, thank you so much for being here today,

Nikki  48:52

having me. It was lovely to talk to you and share some reflections and make me go back into the past a little bit, but sometimes it's nice to do that. It's good to do that. It's healthy to reflect the journey and see where we've been and where we are now and where we're going to.

Jenn St John  49:08

Well, I look forward to supporting and shouting from the rooftop everything you guys are doing, and also watching you grow. That'll be very exciting for you.

Nikki  49:18

Thank you so much. One

Jenn St John  49:19

of the things that stayed with me after this conversation with Nikki was the reminder that mental health does not exist separately from the conditions that people are trying to survive inside of safety matters, stability matters, dignity matters, feeling seen matters, and while we often think of healing as something deeply personal. This conversation is such a powerful reminder that it's also deeply collective. Sometimes the most meaningful forms of support are the ones that remind us that we still matter to one another, that someone sees our struggle without reducing us to it, that asking for help doesn't make us a burden, it. And compassion can exist in the same space, and throughout this episode, Nikki spoke so beautifully about connection, dignity, and community care, but underneath all of it was something even more human, the need to feel like we belong, to feel like we matter to one another, to know that someone will meet us where we are without judgment, and maybe that's one of the most important takeaways from today's conversation, that belonging itself can be healing. Before we go, if this conversation resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. You can connect with me through the show notes on social media, or at my website, Gen St john.ca and that's J E N N S T J O H Gen, supporting the podcast by subscribing, sharing an episode, or leaving a review is one of the best ways to help these conversations reach more people. And if something difficult came up while listening, please remember that you don't have to sit with it alone. In Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime for free confidential mental health support. You can also reach out to your local CMHA chapter, and in Simcoe County, the crisis line is one triple 88938333 or you can text 6868 68 to connect to a trained volunteer through the crisis text line. In the US, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text for anyone in emotional distress, not just those in crisis. And for listeners in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 13 1114 day or night, for free and confidential crisis support. Thank you for listening, for holding space for stories like this, and for being a part of this community. We'll be back next week with another conversation. And until then, take good care of yourselves and each other, and keep finding your way forward.