One of UCC’s largest and most impactful clubs, Helping Hands is a place where students can come together and take action to help others in the community while earning service hours. As Club Head Lincoln Dugas-Nishisato explains, “We meet once a month at Flextime to do hands-on meaningful service work that helps those in need around Toronto and internationally. We also have service opportunities outside of school and host events to raise funds and bring awareness to important causes.” In 2024, the Helping Hands Club supported a variety of local organizations including Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter, Ve’ahavta, Haven on the Queensway, Operation Smile, Nellie’s Shelter, St. Margaret’s Church Food Bank, The Jean Tweed Centre, and St. James’ Anglican Church Food Bank. Internationally, they supported The Sunflower Project in Ukraine, BayBay Elementary School in The Philippines, and GlobalMedic in Ecuador. The club prides itself on its adaptability to meet the needs of the community, “if a particular need arises…we immediately pivot and make that the focus of the next meeting,” Lincoln adds. For instance, when food banks start ‘sounding the alarm that they are unable to meet the needs of clients’ the club tries to help in any way possible. An average club meeting can often be characterized as fun and social (often including treats), but is always packed with rewarding, influence-driven, service.
At their meetings, members collaborate and work on various service projects, including: assembling hundreds of filling sandwiches, packing toiletries for women’s shelters, writing letters and packing gift bags for children in The Philippines, packing Halloween loot bags for children in shelters, packing rice for food banks across the GTA, creating thick and warm blankets for those living on the streets, packing food hampers for those facing food insecurity, filling tins with non-perishable food for Defenders on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine and creating family emergency kits for those facing hardship due to war or natural disaster.
One highlight of the club’s activities is their annual meeting at the GlobalMedic headquarters, where they create Family Emergency Kits to be sent to places around the world experiencing hardship. “At our last meeting, our kits were sent to Ecuador which was hit by out-of-control wildfires, to help families who otherwise would struggle to find clean water and would be susceptible to water-borne diseases like cholera,” Lincoln said. A team of club members looks forward to returning this year to help create 1,100 more of these kits. Recently, in response to rising food insecurity, the club will focus its efforts on making sandwiches and creating bags of rice for food banks. They will also participate in UCC’s Mother’s Day Drive, sorting and packing donations of toiletries for women’s shelters.
The Helping Hands Club receives no funding and relies on donations and fundraising from their booths at A-Day and the Festive Marketplace. Lincoln expressed gratitude for the support stating, “We are always grateful to the UCC community who donates and thus gives us the ability to make the world a better place, one person at a time.”
The club also hosts the infamous Helping Hands Talent Show, a UCC tradition held during the final assembly of each calendar year, which showcases the incredible talent at the college and brings awareness to the club’s many efforts.
“We are always excited to hear back from the charities that we support and to realize the impact we have made from our club coming together,” Lincoln noted. Last year, they received a Certificate of Appreciation from BayBay Elementary School and gratitude letters from Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter and Haven on the Queensway.
Anyone can join Helping Hands and club members can attend as many meetings as they wish. “Everyone is welcome to come to a meeting and it is a wonderful way to meet people across the grades and earn service hours, while knowing you are making a real difference to someone in need,” so come and swing by. Who knows, maybe you’ll be one step closer to that gold or silver service tie!
The Blue and White 