Last year, Welcome Hall Mission celebrated its 125th anniversary of caring for Montrealers in need. And for 125 years, donors like you have been faithfully supporting our work with your generous gifts. I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

In 2017, the opening of Montreal’s first free grocery store, Marché Bon Accueil, was a pivotal event for the Mission community. Today, more than 19,000 people regularly shop at the Marché for their free groceries! With your help, we hope to open our second Marché Bon Accueil in Montreal North, welcoming hundreds of new clients!

Your support fuels our mission. We couldn’t be more grateful.

Because of your generous gifts, hundreds of people have received crucial support through their struggles with poverty and homelessness. Your generosity transforms lives!

After nearly 40 years battling with drug addiction and mental illness, I’ve finally found the love and support I needed to transform my life. I couldn’t be more grateful, and that’s why I want to share my story with you today.

When I was just 13, I tried cannabis for the first time. Little did I know that this curiosity would be the beginning of a destructive, life-long relationship with drugs.

I used cannabis heavily until, at 18 years old, I started to experience frightening hallucinations. I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital, and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis. I was stabilized, but just eight weeks later, I found myself back there again.

For months, I was caught in a revolving door of psych treatments, recovery, relapse, and breakdowns in my mental health. I felt powerless and confused.

I had lost total control and started selling drugs. One day, I ended up selling to an undercover police officer which resulted in a seven-year sentence. In prison, I achieved sobriety and stability, and by the time I got out, I felt like I had a new lease on life.

For the next three years, I felt like I was on top of the world. I climbed the ladder of success, I fell in love, got married, bought a home, and had two beautiful children. But then, one day after work, I decided to have a beer. Although I had never struggled with alcoholism, this triggered me to start using cannabis again.

My whole world came crashing down. Thankfully, my family organized an intervention and I was referred to Welcome Hall Mission’s Reinsertion Program. That’s when everything started to really change.

As I worked with my intervention worker, I felt truly supported with love and acceptance. I was treated, not just as an addict, but as someone that would one day be sober.

The Reinsertion Program gave me the tools I needed to maintain a stable life, and manage the challenges that come with mental illness and addiction. Now, I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my life. I have a new job, and I recently signed a lease for my own apartment. I will continue to receive support and mentorship from my intervention workers.

I want to thank all of the donors who made this program possible for me. Thank you for helping me find the healing and wholeness I’ve been looking for all my life!

18 years ago, when Sylvie and Pierre Dansereau were looking for a cause for their family to give to, they came across an ad from Welcome Hall Mission, calling for support. After learning more about the mission’s life-changing services, answering that call was an easy decision.

Sylvie and Pierre wanted to instil in their children the importance of giving to the less fortunate, so each week the children were given an allowance which Sylvie and Pierre helped them budget for saving, spending, and giving to charity. At the end of each year, the money the children saved was donated to Welcome Hall Mission to help support life-changing programs and services.

Now ages 16, 18, and 20, the Dansereau children continue to generously support their community. We are so grateful to the Dansereau family for their dedicated support. Thank you to all of our faithful donors!