To say that the Niagara Warehouse of Hope runs like a well-oiled machine is an incredible understatement.
At first glance, it was chaos: volunteers’ cars were parked in every available space including the lawn, people seemed to come in and out of every corner of the 6,000-square -foot warehouse, and multiple phones rang over the whir of sewing machines and the smell of soldering small electronics.
Upon closer look, however, the warehouse and the work that goes on within is a finely-tuned mechanism of volunteers doing exactly what they’re best at, right down to the synchronized coffee breaks.
This place is a wonder.
The Warehouse of Hope was founded by Mary and Ted van der Zalm in 1989, when they began gathering and storing used items in the family’s garage for shipment to Tanzania. In 1990, volunteers used mostly donated materials to erect the present building, on van der Zalm’s Colonial Gardens property on Broadway Avenue in Port Weller.
Ted passed away last year, yet at 80 years young, Mary, despite an injured knee, is still an active volunteer.
Now, with a logo of ‘helping people help themselves,’ more than 80 volunteers work at the warehouse Tuesday and Thursday mornings to sort, organize and fill shipping containers bound for countries such as Guatemala, Haiti and the Philippines. Warehouse rooms are devoted to sewing, electronics and small medical supplies. A volunteer even calibrates used eyeglasses.
As second-generation volunteer Michelle Appelman sat at a long table, the smell and sounds of fresh coffee percolating behind her, she expertly took apart pieces of a bedskirt so the sewing room volunteers can make use of the ‘new’ fabric to make baby layettes, diapers and tote bags.
“That’s what we’re all about,” said Appelman. “Everything that comes here would normally end up in the landfills. For instance, Juravinski Hospital donated operating room lights and Peter, my husband, tested them to make sure they worked,” before shipping them to Cuba.
In the sewing room, while several women sewed diapers and tote bags for baby layettes, and bags for mothers packed with costume jewellery and hand-made feminine hygiene pads, volunteer Willy Van de Laar explained why she was shifting sweaters and warm jackets to a separate pile.
“We ship to warm countries, and this is all going somewhere else,” such as The Farmworker Hub and Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
“That’s very important,” added secretary Ada Boland. “Everything is donated to us by hospital systems as far away as Toronto and Hamilton.” What they can’t use, they donate locally.
The organization also rents medical mobility supplies to the general public, said Boland, as she pointed out walkers in the medical room, “at a price greatly reduced from what health organizations charge, because this is a way for us to also pay our bills .We’re 100 per cent nonprofit.”
Phil Isber is in charge of shipping. He explained that financial donations help to pay for the cost of shipping a container to countries such as Ukraine, Guatemala, and the Philippines.
In total, 10 to 12 containers are shipped each year. “As of the end of 2022, we had over 200 containers shipped. I was kind of amazed,” said Isber.
A container filled Thursday with used clothing, sewing supplies, used linen, five hospital beds and about 20 or 30 wheelchairs will be shipped to Ukraine, said Isber.
Six pallets of food from Niagara Christian Gleaners has also been loaded into the container by a group of volunteers who hail from diverse careers, and now finding themselves driving tow-motor and playing loading tetris in a 40-foot trailer.
The board determines where to send containers based on factors such as: Is what they have in the warehouse needed in that country? Is there political strife or other barriers that would prevent the container from getting from the port of call to its final destination?
A while ago, said Isber, “the situation was deteriorating in Haiti. We had a container that we shipped, it landed, and it was in customs. It was cleared, yet we were told that it’s too dangerous for them to go pick it up. So we had to get it reshipped to Guatemala.”
The Warehouse of Hope does not work with a specific relief organization, and their contact people are different in each country. For example, containers destined for the Philippines are floated to Port Dover where a group there finalizes the paperwork and ships the container. In Haiti, connections include a priest and a school. They distribute everything, even the medical supplies.
“We ship containers to Guatemala in conjunction with Wells of Hope,” said Isber, a non-profit founded by Ted van der Zalm Jr. and his wife Miriam, who help communities access clean water, education and basic health care.
Volunteer Marie Gowsell thought she and her sister were just going to the garage sale held at the warehouse in June when her sister, Louise Tripodi, came back from getting a hamburger to tell Marie that she just signed them up for sewing.
“She ended up volunteering herself and me to help,” Gowsell said. “Both of us have sewed our entire lives, so when it involves helping people and doing what we really love to do, it was ideal.”
“I’m sewing right now,” Gowsell told The Local, a sister publication of ThoroldToday. “I brought about 50 tote bags home and I’m doing them right from scratch.”
Gowsell, at 76, and Tripodi at 78, just might among the oldest volunteers at Niagara Warehouse of Hope. Besides sewing at home, they sew for hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the warehouse. Well, at least Gowsell said she does. “She has a new boyfriend,” laughs Gowsell, speaking of her sister.
“We’re always sewing. My sister and I both sewed all our lives. I just got into this independent living home and said ‘you know, what the heck, if I’m not cooking or washing clothes, what do I do?’ So this has been very great for us.”
Hayden Murray, a Grade 11 St. Catharines Collegiate student, has been volunteering at the warehouse since he was in Grade 6,” he said. “I clocked in about 75 hours last year and I’m trying to clock in more hours this year.” But it seems Murray is here for more than a graduation requirement.
“I usually help anywhere I can,” said Murray, who was tidying the electronics workbench after testing kettles for safety and workability. “We mostly test electronics.”
In another room, volunteers for Not Just Tourists packaged small medical supplies such as needles, syringes and dressings into boxes for the Ukraine-bound container. “We will go and fill in all the nooks and crannies,” said room organizer Jane Gordon.
Not Just Tourists was started by Dr. Ken Taylor and his wife, Denise, and encourages vacationers to take suitcases packed with small medical supplies to countries such as Cuba. Many airlines do not charge for baggage destined for humanitarian aid. “To Cuba alone, in the first six months this year, in suitcases, we have sent one tonne of medical supplies,” said Gordon. Donated goods come from public agencies, nursing agencies, private homes and retiring doctors’ offices.
At 10 a.m., after a busy morning at the warehouse, the coffee was ready, and volunteers stopped whatever they were doing and headed for the break room. “We’ve developed groups and friendships,” said Isber. “It’s a social thing as much as it’s helping people.”
“It’s easy to help when you are having a good time,” he said.
