Devin Edmiston had been in the penalty box of the outdoor ice rink for too long. He had been sleeping there for a few nights and knew that if huddling together for warmth in a trash can was the best place he could find, he couldn’t handle life on his own anymore.
“Something inside me told me, ‘You need to try to find someone who can help you.'” Edmiston said this while taking a break from playing the piano at a drop-in center in Steinbach, Manitoba, that has become his safe place.
He had been living in different places for a few years.
“It’s hard because when you try to get help, people often push your hand away and don’t give you the chance. And [Steinbach Community] Outreach gave me the chance to do that.”
Data suggests that the city where he got help might be the most generous in all of Canada.
This winter, Edmiston was sleeping in a penalty box at the city’s outdoor rink. In less than two months, he moved into an apartment and started volunteering for Steinbach Community Outreach, the same group that helped him change his life.
He said, “It felt like God gave me a reason and led me through these doors to help.”
People in Steinbach, a city of about 18,000 people, say it has a culture of giving, and his story shows that.
It is impossible to measure how generous someone is. No one keeps track of how often people volunteer or give a friend a ride, but the donations people claim on their taxes are a good indicator of how charitable they are.
According to an analysis of tax filings by Charitable Impact, people in Steinbach give away 4.31 percent of their income to charity, which is a lot more than the national average of 0.62 percent. The only city that comes close is Winkler, which is also in southeastern Manitoba. On average, 3.3% of people’s incomes are given to registered charities in Winkler.
Statistics Canada says that in 2021, the median donation in cities with at least 10,000 people will be $2,270 in Steinbach. This makes it the leader in the country.
Statistics that say Steinbach is a generous person don’t surprise Edmiston. Every day, he sees people giving food, clothes, and toiletries to Steinbach Community Outreach. This organization helps people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless meet their basic needs.
Early on, people help their communities
Madeleine Thiessen, a client advocate at the non-profit that is also a drop-in center during the day, said that the people who live there step up in many ways.
She remembers that they needed a second car just to take home the food they bought at a farmer’s market.
They got a washer and dryer because a first-grade class wrote a persuasive letter that got a furniture store to give them the set. They got $1,000 from two girls who made bracelets and sold them for $3 each.
Thiessen said, “I think the people in Steinbach really see the need.”
She said, “There are a lot of people in this town who have a lot and a lot of people in this town who have nothing.” “Those who have a lot are really willing to give, and it’s a miracle that we can keep going.”
There are more and more people in Steinbach who don’t have enough. The center, which is on the second floor of Steinbach Mennonite Church, helps about 525 families each year, which is 100 more than the number of families who needed help before the pandemic.
“We do see more people coming in here who are struggling to make ends meet and may be about to lose their home,” she said.
It’s one reason why the group, which gets almost all of its money from donations, has decided to build a 24-unit complex for people with low incomes. Private donors have already given more money than the government grant, which was for $1.3 million.
It’s one reason why the group, which gets almost all of its money from donations, has decided to build a 24-unit complex for people with low incomes. Private donors have already given more money than the government grant, which was for $1.3 million
The desire to help others in the Steinbach area has also brought 75 women together to work toward a common goal.
The Chrysalis Fund is a women’s giving circle where philanthropists put their own money into a pooled fund and then decide how to split the money each year. The money is invested so that both the fund and the amount that is given keep growing. This year, more than $11,700 will be given out.
Simone Penner was trying to get her friend Debbie Krahn to join a similar group in Winnipeg. Instead, they decided to start their own group in Steinbach.
Penner said that since 2009, they have given money to charities that help families, youth, and children.
“What better way to give back to the community than for us women to pull our wallets and hearts together?”
Members are as young as their early 30s and as old as 100. Penner’s favorite part was meeting a family who helped their mom find a charity to donate to every year. In her 100th year, they decided to make her a part of the Chrysalis Fund.
Penner said, “She died last year, but now she has a legacy that will last forever.”
The youngest member of the group is Lindsey Banman.
“The fact that [the donations] live on forever just means that a community we love will be around for a long time,” Banman said.
The group said that some of its members have joined these charities as volunteers after hearing about the work they do.
Altruism rooted in fait
Member Moni Loewen, who is the executive director of ROC Eastman, a charity that gives young people access to recreational activities, says that the city’s Mennonite roots explain part of its giving spirit. Some Christians give a portion of their income to church, and churches often give to other causes as well.
“I get the sense from my work with ROC Eastman that tithing and giving stuck, whether people are still religious or not,” she said.
The same kindheartedness helps other communities in southeastern Manitoba.
In the late 1990s, Niverville, Man., was facing a big problem: the province wouldn’t help them build a personal care home because there weren’t enough seniors in the area. However, there weren’t enough seniors in the area because those who needed help like a personal care home moved away.
So Niverville did it on their own and opened a $13.8 million personal care home in 2013 without using any money from the government.
Gordon Daman, who helped run the project, said that a lot of people gave money and a lot of local contractors gave discounts to help build the facility.
Daman knows that many communities are kind because of the work he does to help other places build senior housing and long-term care projects. “There is a sense of connection around those investments, building and sustaining community, not just for myself but for others,” he said of Niverville and Steinbach.
Since then, Niverville has built a life-lease project where every unit had to be bought before building could begin. Daman said that some people bought a unit just to make sure the project could be built, and that some of those people are now renting out their units for less than the market rate.
He said that it shows that people in the area think about things other than themselves.
“I’ll always be grateful and very, very proud of this place. They do more than they should.”