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After two years of work and thanks to a $65,000 federal grant, the Wilmot Family Resource Centre has officially rebranded as the Wilmot and Wellesley Resource Centre and it launched a new website aimed at improving its internal operations and its communication with the people and communities it serves.
According to resource centre executive director Trisha Robinson and administrative coordinator Kathryn McEwin, who was instrumental in seeing this project to fruition, the rebrand is meant to reflect the services and programs the centre has offered to residents in both Wilmot and Wellesley for more than 40 years.
“We do serve Wellesley and we wanted to reflect that and put that into our name and help Wellesley feel included,” Robinson said. “ … We satellite into Wellesley, so we’re doing some programs – an EarlyON program at the (Wellesley) rec centre, we have a free-clothing room and we’re there Thursdays in partnership with the food cupboard, we deliver food through our food services probably almost every day of the week except for Fridays. So, we’re doing deliveries and we have food-bank clients in Wellesley who come here for services too. We just wanted to broaden slowly and do some more services in Wellesley.”
Though Robinson said “family” was dropped from the name of the resource centre primarily to keep it from being too long, McEwin noted it was also a way to make the centre’s name more inclusive in the hopes people in both communities understand the centre serves not only families, but individuals from all walks of life as well.
Designed with accessibility in mind by Accessibrand of Wellesley, the new website will provide a user-friendly experience for all visitors. Building a secure and accessible website was partially funded with $65,000 from the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund – a fund aimed at helping community services agencies modernize and adapt their operations post-pandemic.
The funding was also used to implement customer-relationship management software and to strengthen IT infrastructure and security to help meet growing needs.
“A lot of us (community services agencies) learned that, while we were busy before the pandemic, the pandemic highlighted some of the areas where maybe we could work on or strengthen because, of course, we had to find different ways to communicate with people and get services to people,” McEwin said.
The new website and software upgrades now allow for things like an online donation form for community members who want to support the resource centre, the potential for online ticket sales in support of fundraisers and an e-newsletter, increased security of personal information, a central communications list that makes it easier to stay in touch with donors, clients and stakeholders, and so much more.
For more information on the services and programs available to Wilmot and Wellesley residents through the resource centre, visit www.wilmotwellesleyrc.ca.
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