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Inside supportive housing

Read about the work Umbrella is doing in this great article in the Times Colonist. Thanks to journalist Katie DeRosa for spending time with us. And thank you to Shelby, Ross and Tracey for sharing their story with us. And thanks to all of our supporters and donors - ...
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Thank you Marianne!

Have you ever had someone in your life that is like a guardian angel? Well, Umbrella has a few, and one of them is Marianne Alto. Marianne, pictured below with Blake our Housing Manager at Foundation House, always has Umbrella top of mind and we have received some very...
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Our office is ONE!

On July 1, 2019 Umbrella moved to our own office space and we have never looked back. This past year has been one of enormous growth and of change, not just moving from Quadra Village Community Centre to Burnside Gorge area, but our team, our programs, our services and...
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Despedidas, Lesley

Today is our sweet Lesley's last day as a full time employee with Umbrella. Lesley has been a quiet force at Umbrella and we have had the pleasure of watching her grow into a confident, kick-ass worker. She has worked everywhere, including the SAMI/ICMT team, on Saltspr...
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WOW! Have we grown!

Today was our first in-person staff meeting since March 18 and it was filled with A LOT of new faces! On March 18 was there 19 employees and today we have 30! (Missing in the photo is Cait, Dottie and Braelynne). We spent a bit of time reconnecting and sharing about ou...
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Celebrating Evan!

Today was a very special day at Umbrella. The team took advantage of our ZOOM staff meeting to celebrate Evan's 10 years of sobriety! We created a "build-a-head" of Evan and shared it on ZOOM during our staff meeting so that everyone looked like Evan. It created a lot ...
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2020 AGM

Tonight was Umbrella's 2020 AGM. Since this was our 20th year, we wanted to have a big splash and celebrate Umbrella. Instead, we held our AGM via ZOOM. It wasn't how we planned it, but it was wonderful. It was so great to see friendly faces who share our success, a...
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Lyca gets political

Normally all of us at Umbrella, including our house dog Lyca, try to keep politics out of our day to day work - but not today. Lyca received a Donald Trump Chew Toy from Bronwyn and it is her new favourite thing! She carries him around, pulls at his hair and makes him ...
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Care Packages

When we had our last staff meeting March 18, we had no idea how long it would be until we all saw each other again, in person. We are almost at the two month mark and boy do we miss seeing our team weekly. So much so, that we created care packages for all staff, and d...
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ZOOM Board Meetings

Last night, Umbrella held our monthly board meeting via ZOOM. We had to cancel April's board meeting due to the uncertainty of the COVID situation, so it had been awhile since we met. Our board is a critical resource for the ED and they are a group of warm, caring and c...