Children and adults dressed as their favourite characters for the Halloween-themed inaugural Monster March, Saturday morning.
Hosted by the Near North Palliative Care Network (NNPCN), the charity walkathon raised money for the organization, which is a volunteer visiting hospice serving Nipissing and Parry Sound.
“The march is the fruit of the OTF (Ontario Trillium Foundation) grant. We could hire an events fundraiser/coordinator. With the addition of this person to our team, we decided to organize a second fundraiser a year,” explained Monica Do Coutto Monni, Executive Director of the Near North Palliative Care Network.
“Everybody knows our butterfly release during the summer and now from this year on, the dream is to have the Halloween Monster March as part of the tradition here in town, to fundraise for hospice palliative care.”
The NNPCN provides palliative care support, caregiver’s respite, bereavement, and grief support services all free of charge.
“We train volunteers to go wherever the client and caregiver need us; homes, hospitals, long-term care facilities, everywhere.”
The organization applied for the grant to help it move forward, as it works to recover from some of the impacts created by the pandemic.
“A lot of not-for-profits were highly impacted by COVID-19. During COVID many charities and local businesses were bankrupting because all doors were closed. The OTF launched the Resilient Communities Fund to help small, but very relevant businesses and charities like us, to get on our feet again,” explained Do Coutto Monni.
Ishmael Van Der Rassel, a committee member on the Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant Review Board attended the march, sharing the amount of grant money awarded to the palliative care network.
“They’re receiving $132,500 from the OTF,” said Van Der Rassel.
” Funds from the grant were used over the last year to assist with staffing costs for people to conduct workshops and focus on volunteer recruitment, develop new fundraising strategies, and help expand the Hospice’s vital services and programs, all of which helped to increase their ability to recruit new volunteers, hold new fundraisers and more,” said Van Der Rassel.
“This grant has helped them to basically hire people back, to cover money they have lost, to build their capacity and to also invest more money into the palliative care network as a whole and to increase their services.”
The NNPCN executive director was thrilled to be a grant recipient.
“They were so generous. We were able to hire three new staff so that we could create all these fundraisers that you have seen during the year,” said Do Coutto Monni
A portion of the grant was also earmarked towards covering other expenses.
“The OTF grant was vital to allow us to serve our population in this moment of pandemic when they needed us the most. This is the end of the grant. We are celebrating receiving the grant and a very successful year of serving the community thanks to OTF.”
Money raised from the Monster March will help the network continue to offer and develop services. The march was made possible in part, through the Resilient Communities Fund grant on behalf of the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
