OSHaRE Building Owen Sound (Photo by Nathan Shubert)
The Executive Director of OSHaRE says the organization saw a spike in demand last year, including over Christmas.
Colleen Trask-Seaman says the very busy Christmas at OSHaRE set a new record for the organization by serving 1,400 meals between Dec. 24 to the 26.
“It was amazing to have our volunteers come out and to help us share with the community, but it was definitely a busy place,” says Trask-Seaman. “People were talking about the turkey and we gave out boxes of chocolate on Christmas day that had been wrapped by all our partners before the holiday season and we had special gingerbread cookies that had been decorated by Timothy Christian School and just lots of little nice treats for the guests and they were so thankful for everything that they got.”
She says it was incredible to see the community come out and donate over the holiday season.
“We are so thankful for every donation that came in from food donations to monetary donations. Our community definitely stepped up to help OSHaRE,” says Trask-Seaman.
Throughout the year, Trask-Seaman says OSHaRE also saw its fair share of new faces.
“It looks like our whole year has looked, where we see an increase every month of new people needing assistance. Our final number for the year came in at 327,905 meals for the year of 2025, which is up from 212,000 in 2024. We have definitely seen an increase throughout the year and Christmas was no exception,” says Trask-Seaman.
The demand for services has not slowed down as Trask-Seaman says this month is already seeing an increase over January 2025.
“With our new Family Space that just opened yesterday (Monday), we are hoping that we are able to continue to meet that need by providing additional space where we are able to serve out of. Hopefully that will help us to continue to meet that increasing need,” says Trask-Seaman.