‘Mail strike is never good news’: Non-profit hurting during Canada Post strike

Bray: Can you give us a snapshot of what Soul’s Harbor is all about?

Miller: We’re a charity, a non-profit that really is there for the marginalized or less-fortunate people within our community. We serve them via a variety of programs and services, from food security, providing meals Monday to Friday, emergency shelter for men, we have a subsidized daycare, lots of affordable housing to apartment buildings that are just designated for affordable housing, women’s addiction program, and free clothing distribution. There’s a lot of things we do. We try to provide those basic humanitarian needs. Food, shelter, clothing.

How is the mail strike affecting your your organization?

Miller: Direct mail is a significant portion of our revenue. We have other ways to contribute via online, people can phone in with credit cards, things like that. But Christmastime, November, December, that seems to be the peak time for financial donations for our organization.

Our fiscal quarter is strong, and we rely on those revenues to carry us through cold months like January and February, where donations just really don’t exist. Mail is a big portion and, historically, it seems that Canada Post and their union, they want to negotiate in the November, December time frame. And I get it. I understand that. The cost of living has gone up everywhere, and everyone’s just trying to get a few extra dollars in their pockets to make ends meet. And that shakes out in a lot of different ways, but it also puts a lot of pressure on us. We rely on our direct mail campaigns for a significant portion of our overall revenue.

Every time there is a Canada Post strike, we look at it historically, it seems to fall around this time of year, we’ll lose about $150,000 easily, in general revenue that we never get back.

That sounds like a large number. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude of the impact that would have on your overall budget?

Miller: That’s five per cent, which maybe sounds small, but $150,000 is a lot of meals served. We average our meals out at $4.81, so just from that perspective alone, you can do the math on that. It’s thousands of meals that we lose.

If you have any reserves, you burn those up pretty quick. And what we’re seeing now is everyone knows the cost of living is gone up and it’s harder for the public to make donations. For starters, it’s harder for them, because they’re trying to make ends meet too.

You mentioned meals, on average, about $4.81 a meal. So you’re looking at 30,000 meals that are implicated by $150,000 less revenue coming in through donations. So is this time of year busier for you, or is it just that this time is kind of the peak time in terms of donation season?

Miller: This time of year is busy from the service and program end. Very busy. And it also is the most beneficial donation period in our entire fiscal year. That second quarter, from October to December, is very instrumental in carrying us through the third quarter, through January, February, March.

A mail strike is never good news.

Tell us about the other ways people can donate.

Miller: We redid our website not that long ago, so obviously online is an option, and that’s easy. You just go to www.shrmsk.com and you can make a donation there quite easily. You just hit the donate button and it’ll take you through all the steps. You can even designate some of those funds to where you want to see them go. Another option is to phone in. It’s a little old school, but pick up the phone, 306-543-0011, and you can make a credit card donation that way. And of course, you can bring it down in person to our main administrative office here in Regina at 1650 Angus Street. And we actually had a gentleman walk through the doors this morning.

We had a direct mail campaign that dropped probably our biggest campaign of the year just before the postal strike, so we know that that request is in the hands of many people, and this gentleman just walked in with a $350 check and said “I didn’t want to throw this in the mail.”

Saskatchewan people have always been generous, and we know that they’ll rise to the challenge, and that’s what we hope. We just have to try and find alternate ways to deal with the situation that we’ve been handed.

What else is going on at Soul’s Harbour for the month of December?

Miller: We have our really big community Christmas meal on December 20, at 1632 Angus street, so people can just come down at 4:00 p.m. It’ll be traditional, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, all that fun stuff. We actually try and make December a whole month of Christmas. So, we offer $1,000 meal sponsorships that are available for purchase. So businesses, churches, individuals, you can pick from a turkey, a ham or a Ukrainian style Christmas meal, and just your way of wishing everyone a Merry Christmas that will help us create a really wonderful meal on any day throughout December. Those sell out really fast. But we’re seeing an increase in our numbers now just on the people that were just regarding the people we feed. Those numbers are well over 300 for a supper meal, Monday to Friday. So $1,000 goes a long way. It doesn’t cover all the costs. But it’s a great way to help us, and it’s a great way to, you know, take some of that Christmas spirit and share, share the love and goodness with other people. So those meal sponsorships are available. You can contact Taeryong at taeryong@shrmsk.com and he’ll be able to help you out with that.