Shawna Thibodeau was told there were no poor people in Barrhaven

Fat Les's Chip Stand and Wham Burger on Strandherd Drive ran a charity barbecue on Tuesday evening, August 18th, from 5 to 8 p.m., with the proceeds going to Shawna's Outreach. Shawna Thibodeau, who runs it, sat at one of the red picnic tables in the lot and explained what the outreach actually is.

"I collect items that people want to share, hopefully without spending money," she said. "We all have stuff in our house that we want to share, and there's people who need that stuff. So I'm that middle person who puts together the items that I receive in a helpful way, and I bring them directly to the hand of the person who needs it."

She has been doing it since 2009. It started because she needed help herself, arrived in Ottawa in 2008, and could not find any. Then somebody told her something she has not forgotten.

"I was told there was no poor people in Barrhaven in 2008, and I knew they were wrong, because I was one of those people."

She still lives in Barrhaven. The work runs well past it: Kanata to Orleans, Gatineau to Manotick, with most of the street outreach downtown, from Preston Street to Vanier. Most of the people she reaches are unhoused. What she cannot use directly she routes to other charities, the furniture places, the clothing places, the ones that work with single mothers.

What she hands out goes into bags, and three things go into every bag: a drink, a pair of clean men's socks, and a protein. The drinks are the part that surprises people. Juice boxes, Kool-Aid Jammers, bottled water, Gatorade. Asked whether those were children's drinks, she said they are, "but if you think about people on the street, they're not worried about their waistline. They're worried about calories and vitamins."

She does not do outreach to children, and she is glad about it. "There are other organizations that have stepped in to save the children before they get to the point where I find them."

A typical week is hard to describe. Donations come from other organizations, from drop spots around the city, from an Amazon wish list that ships to her door, and from her own front step. Then she sorts it, everything "from the toothpaste from 2009 to the fresh baked cookies from my neighbour."

Her page lists the drop spots: Morning Owl on Armstrong Street, Helping With Furniture on Michael Street, March Road Pet Supplies in Kanata North, and Chiromax of Manotick, plus private homes in Orleans, Barrhaven, Richmond and Greely, addresses given by message.

One thing worth knowing before you give: Shawna's Outreach is her own operation, attached to no organization and not registered as a charity, as The Globe and Mail reported in December 2024. There is no tax receipt at the other end. There is also no overhead. The Globe counted more than 2,200 bags handed out over that year, plus 500 stockings for Christmas morning.

CBC's Heather Hiscox interviewed her on Morning Live in December 2024, the Globe profiled her that same month, and she and Ottawa author Amanda Sterczyk wrote a short book about the work, "Shawna's Outreach: When we each give a little, a lot gets done." What has not been written up much is the Barrhaven end of it: the woman doing this lives here, and one of her drop spots is here.

The need is not shrinking. "The numbers keep rising," she said. "The economy, the housing crisis, the dirty drugs, just everything all in one. Most people are a paycheque away."

Asked what she does with her spare time, she said, "I don't know what that is." Then she reconsidered: the gym.

Shawna's Outreach can be reached at [email protected] or through its Facebook page.