For The Love of Giving – Jenna and The Winnipeg Centre of Hope

by jmifsud
Categories: Blog, For The LOVE of Giving
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    Jenna Burgoing is a graphic design student at CDI College in Winnipeg. Around Giving Tuesday this past November, CDI College hosted a contest for students called CDI is Kind. Participating students had a bingo card with examples of acts of kindness. They were asked to share pictures and post them on social media with the hashtag #CDIisKind. The prize was a $500 donation to the winner’s charity of choice.

    Jenna jumped into the contest with both feet, quickly uploading her photos and the completed row on her bingo card. She knew exactly where she wanted the money to go if she won.

    When Jenna was a teenager, after her parents divorced, remarried, and moved away from her hometown of Montreal, she was left on her own. She spent some time in a shelter in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but something urged her to go west. She hitchhiked and ended up in Winnipeg.

    Upon arriving in Winnipeg and dealing with mental health issues from abandonment, abuse and depression, Jenna ended up in the hospital. When she was discharged, she went to The Salvation Army Centre of Hope.

    “Once I got out of the hospital, I went to the Salvation Army shelter, and that’s where I was able to get my independence back. Everybody was great there. I got a room to myself. I got to hang out with people in the cafeteria. I got to make friends. It was really a great experience being there,” she says.

    “In Winnipeg, I found the support I needed. I found everything I needed. I found the right social workers and hospital workers, and I got put on the right medicine to take away my depression and my anxiety. I also got an EI worker, and they did all the paperwork that I needed to get funds from the government so I could have a place to stay, money for food and other stuff,” she explains.

    The supports she was connected with at the Centre of Hope paved the way for her to move into her own apartment and secure funding to enter a post-secondary program. She decided on the graphic design program at CDI College.

    “At the college, I’ve been talking to my teachers, and I told them my journey, and they were impressed, and they were just happy for me that I’ve come all this way,” says Jenna.

    “And then I heard about the contest, and my teacher was like, ‘you should enter; I can tell if you win, you’re going do something good with the prize.’ And I thought about it, and I’m like yeah, you know what, I want to give back to Winnipeg. I know that the Salvation Army Centre of Hope was so good to me. And they help people like me and other people in general get back on their feet. That’s where the money should go to.”

    Jenna won the contest, but what’s more, CDI College was so moved by her experience that they stepped up to match the $500 prize by donating $1,000 to the Winnipeg shelter. Jenna felt strongly about using her donation to support one of her favourite parts of the Centre of Hope – the cafeteria.

    “It’s just so cool to be able to congregate with other people, to sit there and to eat a meal, talk and laugh at someone’s joke, and just feel like a normal human being. Everybody was treated like an equal, and no one looked down upon anyone. It almost felt like being in college or like I was at the dorm. I was just hanging out with my peers, and we were just being normal people.”

    “I always hold The Salvation Army Centre of Hope in my heart. I always think fondly of that experience because it was the first step to really putting me on the right path to independence and being a responsible adult,” she says.

    Jenna is working towards completing her program and hopes to use her graphic design skills to help a non-profit spread their message. Thank you, Jenna, for your generosity and for sharing your story!

    Listen to Jenna share her story on CJOB and CBC Radio.

    Check out Jenna’s blog and see more of her art on social media.

    Twitter: @jpgmaple

    Instagram: @maplearticulations