Providing Food & Drinks – Our volunteers prepare all of the food that we serve. This includes soup, hot & cold sandwiches, Kraft Dinner, pasta, potatoes, hot dogs, chicken burgers, hamburgers, cookies, hot coffee, juice and cold drinks. Some of the food we deliver to the homeless is donated by EggsFrutti Restaurant and Atlas Pizza (NDG) but we still must purchase most of the food and drinks we give out. We also buy condiments, ,jam & Peanut Butter Packets, sugar packets, crackers, Coffee Mate, food containers, cups, plastic cutlery, foil, Saran Wrap and bags.
Providing Warm Clothing, Sleeping Bags & Hygienic Items – We collect and distribute donated clothing. Our drop-off locations are: Studio Meta1111, 5440 Queen Mary Road, Suite 103 and Atlas Pizza (NDG), 6555 rue Somerled. We need blankets, sleeping bags, coats, boots and sweaters which can often be the difference between life and death during the bitter cold WINTER. Sadly we lose some to the cold almost every year. We also buy underwear, hats, gloves, warm socks, scarves and basic hygiene items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap & deodorant. We have cash donation boxes set up at A-Z Atlas Garage, 6000 Rue St Jacques, Tilos Restaurant, 6587 Rue Somerled and Studio Meta1111, 5440 Queen Mary Road #103. We did have more donation boxes set up at other locations but they were stolen and we chose not to replace them. Since the summer of 2024, we have been doing a street BBQ in downtown Montreal on Ste Catherine St just east of De la Montagne where the homeless are invited to eat for free and the public are invited to eat cheap and donate. Through these efforts, we have raised funds to buy sleeping bags and additional winter clothing, such as boots and other much-needed articles. The sleeping bags are given out per request, usually on the next day, as they are expensive and DIFY wants to ensure that they will be taken care of and not discarded after 1 or 2 uses. In the spring of 2025, we hope to hold BBQs several times per week and continue until the snow falls.
Providing Aid & Moral Support – Unlike most charities that require the homeless to go to them we at DIFY Charity go to the homeless and this sets us apart from the vast majority of organizations that also help the destitute. We realize that many people living on the streets are so broken and dysfunctional they are not capable of helping themselves. We follow the Golden Rule and try to treat people the way we would want to be treated ourselves. We offer moral support, friendship and encouragement to those who feel worthless and that nobody cares about them. We also distribute maps with directions to the appropriate service centers such as addiction, senior, aboriginal or Social Services depending on the individual’s situation. Sadly for one reason or another many people on the street can’t receive Welfare and must subsist on the spare change they beg for.
Our Volunteers – Our volunteers genuinely care about and are dedicated to helping those people who find themselves living on the bottom rung of society … those unfortunate, hungry, cold, frightened souls who end up alone and calling the streets their home. Our motto is: There, but for the grace of God, go I. If you want to volunteer and wish to get involved go to our Join Us page on this site.
