It’s National Volunteer Week!  We are privileged to work with volunteers every single day at KW Habilitation as the volunteer program has become an essential part of our organization.  During national volunteer week, we will be recognizing some of the volunteers who have helped us come together with our community to inspire abilities and enrich the lives of children, youth and families at KW Habilitation.

When COVID-19 came to Waterloo Region, KW Habilitation had to get creative.  We made a call to our community for donations of PPE so that we would be prepared should an outbreak happen in one of our locations.  In addition to ensuring we had enough PPE, we started sewing.  We asked our community to sew masks and gowns for our staff and the people we support.  To date, we have been able to distribute over 3700 masks that have been sewn by talented and generous people from Guelph, Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and beyond.

Gwen Narimalla, a SNAP Resource Coordinator from Early Learning said:

“I am so proud to be part of a community where people are so willing to volunteer their skills. We aren’t finished yet, our aim to have at least 5000 masks.  We have had people, sew, donate fabric, cut fabric, and drive around dropping supplies off to people who want to help but do not drive. We have had staff, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbours and strangers all reach out to participate in Operation Cover-Up. There are almost 300 gowns distributed in the community that are currently being sewn as well.  I would like to say a big thank you to all our volunteers who have helped with this.”