How you can help local women in need this holiday season

For over 40 years, the Sudbury Women’s Centre (SWC) has been dedicated to creating a community that supports all women, girls and gender diverse individuals facing homelessness, poverty, intimate partner violence and mental health and addictions issues.

The local non-profit offers resources and programs to help its clients overcome these challenges, like My Sister’s Closet. This program provides basic, necessary clothing at no cost.

Through My Sister’s Closet, clients are able to access 15 free clothing items per month and as many hygiene supplies as they need.

The Sudbury Women’s Centre relies entirely on donations, both financial and physical. While the centre is grateful for the amount of clothing donations they receive, they are in need of more hygiene products.

“We get a lot of clothing donations, but what we need the most right now are items for our hygiene closet. We always need more of those,” said Carolyn Glasby, development officer at the Sudbury Women’s Centre.

As long as they are new and unopened, the SWC will accept hygiene donations such as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothbrushes, deodorant, pads and tampons. The centre doesn’t accept donations that contain alcohol, like mouthwash or hand sanitizer.

“Monetary donations are also great because we can make donor’s dollars go further by getting hygiene items in bulk and providing more items for our clients,” Glasby shared.

Those who can’t donate at this time can support the centre by following their Facebook page and sharing posts.

The SWC also helps women in need in other ways, including providing bus tickets, counselling, job applications and legal aid.

Programs like Healthy Relationships & Boundaries help clients improve their relationship-building skills through self-compassion through in-person workshops.

“I love seeing when things come full circle at the centre. We have clients that came to us with nothing, and now we see them come through our doors as donors,” Glasby shared. “To see them again in such a better place and in a position to donate to us is very cool.”

Sudbury.com is proud to make a difference in our community by highlighting extraordinary individuals and organizations with this Cares feature, a foundational piece of our Sudbury.com Cares Program.

The Sudbury.com Cares team’s mission is to create meaningful change in Sudbury – and inspire others to do the same.