BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN POVERTY, SELF-RELIANCE

PORT CARLING — The ever-expanding tool box of knowledge and skills it takes to bridge the gap between poverty and sustainability is slowly filling.

Recently, almost two dozen people from across Muskoka took part in a half-day YWCA-organized workshop here to share ideas and come up with strategies and workable solutions to try and overcome a crisis of the times at an event titled Bridges Out of Poverty.

And not only were Y staff members Amy Jones and Kelly Jones and the attendees able to come up with a few more ideas on how to proceed in their own little ways, but at a practical level they gave food donations to the West Muskoka Food Bank.

The event was part a new initiative called Circles, which provides a transitioning step from one program to another in order to progress along the path to some sort of self-sufficiency.

A Circles South Muskoka begins this fall in Gravenhurst.

The next Bridges Out of Poverty will be held in Huntsville in November.

Surrounded by food donations, participants from across Muskoka listen during the half-day engagement exercise. (YWCA photos)
Kelly Jones leads one of the roundtable workshop conversations for the 23 participants in Port Carling.
Amy Jones, the coordinator of Circles South Muskoka, and Kelly Jones the Bridges Out of Poverty facilitator and coach for Circles South Muskoka were organizers of the Port Carling Bridges event July 25.