Broken Crayons still Colour
This summer, Barefoot Love taught Spread the Love workshops to two different summer camps in Toronto Housing communities in Canada. In collaboration with Urban Promise Toronto, children attending Camp Hope and Camp Victory were given freedom to create. After learning a little about colour and texture, they started painting their own interpretation of Urban Promise’s summer camp theme “Broken Crayons still Colour.”
Growing up in community housing means growing up around gang violence, sex trafficking, and drug trafficking. The community where Camp Victory is run is one of the highest communities for single-parent households and has a reputation as Toronto’s worst.
One of the street leaders shared:
“They just think of us as here… we’re all in the ghetto. We all have that hard life, live in communities house, and nobody is trying to become better than that, we like where we are. What’s going on… there’s drugs, violence, girls and all that. But we’re more than that. We love each other and want to see people grow in the community. When we see one bad thing happening to somebody, nobody is really happy about that. The gangs and stuff, nobody’s happy that someone died because of gang violence. Nobody’s happy. Like we want better for our community, ‘cause younger generations like us, we’re growing up in this community, and we don’t want our children to come and see this. We can be better than that, we just need to work to it.”
Urban Promise Toronto’s mission is to reach children in Toronto Community Housing with the love of Jesus and raise them into leaders who bring restoration into their community. To prevent youth from entering into high-risk behaviours, Urban Promise is committed to a 20-year journey with a child and their family, beginning at age five. The work they do is is not focused on creating programs that might produce short-term results, but about expressing the love of Christ in very simple practical ways, trusting God to transform lives.
Urban Promise is in the business of transportation and cultivating potential. Chris, the Supervisor at Camp Victory puts it this way:
“My perspective… being here, being in this community, getting to know kids, and getting to see the positive side, the beautiful side of this community… What I see is a community that is very close-knit. People are very understanding and they care for each other. I see community that has a lot of gifts, a lot of talents, and a lot of potential.”
Because of your purchases and support, Barefoot Love was able to sponsor several Spread the Love workshops, teaching art and empowerment, to children living in Toronto housing communities. Thank you.
