Some of the events we ran were Super Bowl, Family Fun Day, Hospitality Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast. These were great events for connecting people.

April was a very different month! All our Staff worked from home but we still wanted to connect with our amazing teams. Our Pastors and Department Heads spent hours each week on the phone, text or online making sure to connect and pray for our volunteers. We also created a volunteer appreciation video to stay connected to our teams.

Our café patios proved to be a perfect place to host volunteer hang out groups, and Zoom Groups on the patio while we were still closed inside. We quickly supplied heaters to keep everyone warm in the cool evenings. We also brought in food trucks every Friday night to add to the atmosphere and help those owners through a very slow summer.

We opened our outdoor patio each day from morning to evening and for the first time since we originally opened the cafés, we opened our doors to the public 7 days a week. Our Café Teams were a tremendous help in the outreach. Our indoor cafés opened to 25% capacity. People could now sit inside!

On our patios we hosted classroom time for SCA so the kids could meet in person and also hold the preschool graduation. We opened Toronto lounge to host our 20 Something events and Grade 5 and 6 events.

• With the increase of group size allowance and 50% indoor café capacity we were able to hold Canada Day celebration, puzzle nights, trivia night, live music on the patio, ladies nights, and men’s breakfasts.
• We started serving lunches during the week to encourage people to the café during the day.  Friday nights continued to be our fun gathering nights with music, food trucks, and games for the kids…
• Throughout the summer, all our various departments hosted events on the patio to bring volunteers together creating a sense of togetherness despite current restrictions.
• Along with our Drive-In, our patios and cafés became the only place we could gather for Sunday services. We quickly equipped all our cafés with speakers and TV’s so people with small children or those without vehicles who couldn’t attend Drive-In could come to church in person in our cafés.

• We saw our awesome Build Team put together three picnic shelters with barbecues which we started using to host birthday parties for anyone who wanted to use our park space. It was an amazing way for our church family to invite guests to hang out in a safe fun environment. We heard many stories of people being blown away by what we provided for them. It was a special way to help families celebrate together in a time of isolation.
• We provided the space for families to host family gatherings, anniversaries and other fun groups (singles group, ladies motorcycle group…).
• Our Kids Department organized, Family Drop In’s where families could come to hang out with other families. Every week, we changed the theme of our main activities such as Foam Party, Safari Day, Water day, Paint Party and Rocket Launch. We had so many families say this was the highlight of their week. Our families had the opportunity to bring new families, to visit with grandparents or meet friends whom they hadn’t seen in a long time. It became a place of refuge for people with kids!

• MB Health Orders allowed us to open an indoor service at 725. Our Music Team gave us a live band on the stage at these services – it was great to worship together.
• We hosted an outdoor Halloween Scavenger Hunt with Mascots, Princesses, free hot chocolate and lots of candy. Despite the snow and cold wind, many excited families participated in our outdoor activity.