Black Lives Matter: What We're Doing

As a family, we have been having more and more conversations about race relations and injustices in these last few days. Though these conversations have always happened in our home, they have had a renewed sense of urgency because of the events that have sparked demonstrations and protests around the world. 

As a business, we have always been committed to supporting causes in our community that are important to us as a team of staff and as a family. Whether that’s the Food Bank or the YWCA, it’s important to us to have a thriving community where everyone is welcome, because everyone deserves to have a voice and a seat at the table. 

At large, we always try to be as welcoming as possible to everyone in our community. Racism has no place in our business or personal lives, as there is no place for racism in our world at large. Especially with the newest generation of our family growing up quickly right before our eyes, we want to leave a positive impact on the world and change it for the better, making our granddaughter’s world more equitable than ours is now.

That’s why we’re making a donation to the Federation of Black Canadians in light of all of the pain that the black community is going through as we share this message. Unfortunately, it is easy to think of racism happening in other parts of the world, but it is harder to face the hard facts that it is happening everywhere—including our local community—as well. This donation will support the organization’s priority areas of community building, higher education, total health, economic security, reducing racism, and criminal justice reform. 

If you have the means to do so, we’d encourage you to also donate to causes that you believe in that will help fight prejudice at a local, national, or global scale. At a systematic level, we have a lot of work to do to get better, and these tough conversations must not stop if we’re really going to make a change.

Though we always strive for a welcoming and equitable environment, if there is anything we can do to be better, we want to have that conversation with you. We want to be inclusive of your needs, we want to help you where we can. For all of our black community members, we want you to know that we see you, we hear you, and we stand with you. Your lives and experiences matter.