Geraldine Aguiar, CEO, Caledon Community Services
Co-Chair of Metamorphosis Leadership Team
What’s the top issue you’re facing as you look to the future?
Caledon is anticipated to grow by 24,000 homes between 2024 and 2031. That’s almost an additional 80,000 people. That’s more than twice the population of Orangeville. You can think about roads and infrastructure, but what do people do if they need support? We’re all going to be impacted by the economic realities, tariffs, job loss, the rising cost of groceries, interest rates, the cost of a townhouse, or the average rent. We’ve got double income families coming to our food bank. I think that Caledon is going to change dramatically in the next five to 10 years. Yes, Brampton and Mississauga have needs, but their populations and their land masses are largely developed. Caledon is still going through the adolescence of booming housing developments. We’re projected to be 300,000 by 2051, only 25 years from now. Much like roads and schools and other important parts of civic society, the nonprofit sector has to level up, or we’re just not going to meet the needs of our community.
What are the greatest needs that Caledon Community Services responds to?
Caledon still doesn’t have public transportation. We’ve got some green shoots with Brampton transit coming up to service the employment industrial areas for employers, but there really is no public transportation. The population has grown, and the demographics in Caledon have changed. There is an increased uptake of people using poverty reduction programs, such as our food bank, our case worker community support, ODSP, OW, utility support, recreation support, and family support subsidies. We’re also seeing an increase in our job programs and our newcomer and settlement services. We’ve expanded PSW services to all of Caledon for every household with a senior eligible for ministry services.
What’s one thing that surprises people about your organization?
Our name, Caledon Community Services. We’re sometimes confused with being part of the town, but we’re not a municipal organization. We’re the largest social service agency in Caledon. We are a charity.
Who are your main clients and what kind of impact do you make in their lives?
We’ve had a 30% increase in visits in the last year. We hear people coming to us saying, ‘I never thought I’d ever be here. We’re both employed.’ We see more families coming to our food bank. That’s a change. We’ve got those that had difficult life challenges, and they’re making choices like, ‘Do I eat today, or do I pay my bill? Do I eat today or do I buy medication? Do I go and take a trip to the doctors, or do I feed my cat?’ I’m hearing a lot of people come to our door often surprised that they are in the situation they are in. And so, being gentle with that and recognizing that need comes with many different faces, but that at the end of the day, everyone’s wanting to thrive. It’s not just that we hand them a hamper of food or give them a ride, but we actually take the time to really assess that individual and their circumstance, and then try to put our weight behind the needs of that individual. We start to make referrals to other programs that we don’t offer, or to doctors or specialists, and I think that’s the lift that surprises many of our clients. We’re a one-stop shop. Our customer service vision is to make it easy for people to ask, to participate, and to give.
How do you find your clients and how do they find you?
Although the immediate currency is social media and everything’s digital, we’ve found that for a lot of our clients, that’s not the primary way of getting information to them. It’s more about word of mouth or a newspaper. They get information from being at the places they normally go. For example, we have a faith in action group now, and the churches are one of the main places where we run a lot of our materials. We recognize that people are struggling, and many people go to their faith community to seek support. We’ve also partnered with the library. Schools have been a strong partner for our youth programs and our food support program. We’re really looking at different ways to put the person who might need our services at the center of our strategies.
What’s the secret to your long history?
People are committed to this organization. I am only the third CEO in about 55 years, so that continuity probably helps provide that sense of stability to be able to grow. And those relationships with the funders, the relationships with the community certainly help, as you have those long-standing relationships and the trust. When we started in 1971, we acted as the community navigator for Caledon residents who were looking for information and services. We were essentially a telephone line operating out of somebody’s kitchen. Newcomers who came into the community would call a number, and the person picking up the phone would help them get settled. Eventually, the calls became substantial ,and we applied for funding.
It may also help that we’re kind of the only game in town for many of the services that we provide. Unlike in other communities, where there’s multiple service providers doing the same programs because the population is so large. For us, we’ve got the opposite. Gigantic land mass, high cost for service delivery, and a relatively smaller population of 80,000 people. So our service delivery models have to be responsive.
It sounds like fundraising is a major resource that you rely on?
100% – the Caledon community, the long-time donors consistently support the events, and often, meeting the last year’s performance or exceeding last year’s performance. But the needs of the community are growing and there are still funding envelopes that are not getting enough. We end up needing to decide to either hold wait lists or limit the amount of service delivery that we can offer. Are we fundamentally subsidizing government funded programs, the answer is yes, we are. The funded programs are not keeping up with the rising costs for staffing, the rising costs for benefits, the rising costs of operations. And so every program requires a fundraising contribution. We could decide we’re not going to do that and we’re just going to waitlist everybody when the money runs out. Instead, for some of our programs where there isn’t a core funder we need to do a lot of our own fundraising to ensure service delivery. We build on what the funders are funding. And then through our fundraising, we have created an opportunity for some independence. This is where the shortfall is. For example, we actually need to subsidize our food insecurity programs and our transportation program. We are constantly asking, where are the pain points in service delivery, and how can we alleviate them? That’s the character of this organization.
How does the organization use the No Wrong Door approach?
We really work hard at ensuring that if you come in through whichever program stream, you have an opportunity to be immediately tagged for any other services that comes up as needed in your assessment. People come to us because of our roots as a contact center for information. We’re not a formal Welcome Wagon, but we might as well be, because we’re the first call for most people.
As the CEO, what’s your favourite thing about Caledon Community Services?
My absolute favorite thing is making sure we’re relevant, making sure we’re always looking to the future and evolving. I’ve been here now since 2013 and this organization consistently does that. It doesn’t just stay the same. We’re always open to that kind of innovation, and really question, are we seeing what we ought to be doing, that kind of character of the organization is my most favorite thing.
How has the organization evolved since you started?
When I first came on board, we had this little food cabinet, and like you see in many churches, it was a little covered. But the community needs were so apparent that the organization decided to make it one of its major programs. We went from a little food cupboard that people were operating off the side of their desks, to a full-fledged food bank where we have a kitchen and robust food support program and nutrition classes. Now, The Exchange, where the food bank is located, is our head office. Many of our internal programs are now operating out of that one location to create a full service experience for clients.
What’s one thing that you love doing every day in your job?
The people. I love interacting with my staff, team and partners in the community. We’re trying to solve impossible and systemic problems, and it’s easy to get discouraged, but when you hear the difference that you made in a family’s life, or senior’s, or newcomer’s, you realize that even though you might be swimming against a big current, there are people whose lives have been positively changed by interacting with our organization.
How has your personal experience informed your leadership at Caledon Community Services?
I have a special needs child, and I really got to see the strength of what the community can do, beyond what two parents can do. I truly think that if you’re not a recipient in some parts of your life, or your extended family’s life, you don’t witness it. If you don’t feel it, it doesn’t touch you, you’re missing a really significant piece of information as a leader. You can always get the lived experience of clients. We hear that all the time. It’s powerful, but when it touches your own life, and you see and feel the bottlenecks, the hassle of unnecessary administration, the ridiculousness sometimes of the rules. That whole kind of lived experience piece helps me shape and evaluate what that interaction is going to be with the people that we serve. And now when I’m sitting on the other side of the table, and I’m looking at the programs we serve, it is very real to me to say “We’re making our clients do what?” That holistic viewpoint is so important because, as in my own experience, I worked in the social service sector my entire career, and I know the hospital system. But when my child needed support, it was tough. And I’m in the system. I think that that perspective has really helped me become a better leader in understanding service delivery, and understanding what are the pathways we’re creating for people to receive service and to really question policy. The flip side is I have to keep that measured so that I can continue to be objective in understanding the challenges on both sides, and to be able to broker resources and needs because it’s sometimes an impossible game.
What’s the role of the Metamorphosis Network in Peel’s non-profit social sectors?
I think Metamorphosis helps provide the agencies with a bigger highlighter. It articulates the needs and it validates our experiences in a collective way, to the attention of decision makers. We can individually say we’re underfunded, but when there’s 100 agencies saying that, and when there’s one voice that captures the lived experience of the agencies and the clients – that is advocacy. That work is powerful. Agencies really struggle with quality and data. This is one of the pain points for me as a leader. Metamorphosis is endeavouring to use this unique perspective. What does the collective data tell us so we can better inform policy makers and decision makers. Hopefully, in turn, it will mean better decisions that can then support and build capacity to the different agencies, and to different communities.
