Meet the Cottage Members
Our fifth annual Monster March in support of the Children’s Cottage Society is back and better and better than ever before! Originally started by Wee Wild Ones in 2017, this fundraising campaign began as a way for us to support children in need while encouraging families to spend more time together exploring our beautiful city. Since 2017, we have raised over $130,000 and counting for the Children’s Cottage, helping them continue to provide tending and loving care to families during a crisis.
As our partnership with the Children’s Cottage continues to grow, we become more deeply invested in supporting and amplifying their mission and vision to help serve the families who need it most. With this in mind, we’ve created a “Meet the Cottage Members” series where we connect with the Children’s Cottage team members to share their experiences and why they love working for this impactful organization. But first, read on to learn more about the work that the Cottage continues to do and the members behind making it all happen!
About the Children’s Cottage
For the past 35 years, the Children’s Cottage Society has been dedicated to preventing harm and neglect to children and building strong families through support services, respite programs and crisis nurseries. They work with families to increase protective factors and decrease risk factors to promote child development, effective and nurturing parenting, and support and strengthen family functioning. The Children’s Cottage support families through three locations across Calgary:
The Crisis Nursery located in the heart of Bridgeland, provides 72 hours of loving care to children up to eight years of age while parents work to resolve their issues with the help of family coaches. From 2020 - 2021, the Crisis Nursery served over 913 children and 557 families!
The Family Resource Network, located in the community of Bowness, provides free programs for families and their children looking for support with parenting, child development counselling, and community connections. This space is the bridge between families and the support they need.
The Brenda’s House located in the community of Killarney, ensures homeless children and their parents are sheltered in a safe, respectful environment, 14 families at a time. Since 2020 - 2021, the Crisis Nursery served over 152 children and 90 families! In addition to their three locations across the community, they also provide additional programs such as In-Home Infant Respite, Housing Programs, Early Years Support, etc. In recent years, their need for their services continues to grow, as they had to turn away over 1,900 children due to the lack of space. Now, the Children’s Cottage will be building a new Child and Family Centre in the northwest community of Montgomery. The new centre will include a 20-bed crisis nursery, counselling services, a therapeutic child development program and other programs. This new child and family centre will help address emerging issues in small children before there are lifelong and life-altering impacts and will allow the Children’s Cottage to support an additional 8,850 children a year! In the upcoming weeks, we will be teaming up with the Children’s Cottage to explore each location, sharing with our communities a look inside their space and the importance of their work. Until then, meet two Children’s Cottage members, Lisa Garrison and Sarah Hughes!
Lisa Garrisen (she/her) is the interim CEO at the Children's Cottage! Lisa was born and raised Moh’kins’tsis, now colonized as Calgary. She has been with the Cottage for almost eight years; before her new role, she was the Director of Programs for nearly six years! Lisa chose to work in this industry because she loves the impact she can make in the world. Since her time at the Cottage, Lisa has learned the importance of prevention programming and how even the littlest information can make an impact in helping families discover their resilience. Her hopes for the future are to continue to share kindness throughout the community and help people build lasting connections with those around them.
Sarah Hughes (she/her) is the Director of Development and Communications at the Children's Cottage! Sarah was born in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, and spent her childhood in England before moving back to Treaty 7 to raise her family. She chose to pursue a career in this industry because not only does she enjoy working with children and families, but as a young child, she was taught to look for solutions in society to support those in need. Now, Sarah has worked in the non-profit industry for more than 25 years and has found her passion in fundraising and . the social service sector. Her biggest takeaway from working in this industry is that crisis and trauma are equalizers; they can affect anyone and any time in any situation, and we must show support, empathy, and acceptance to all. Lastly, the impact Sarah hopes to make on our futures is to help all the children they currently are turning away, ensuring that every child and family has an equal opportunity for support.
While the Children’s Cottage Society continues to do incredible work, they still need our help. To support their organization and the families they serve, join us in our fifth annual, family-friendly Monster March! With various activations and one for any family member to enjoy, register and begin raising funds today!