Hello BP Carling!
Hello friends of Boston Pizza Carling! You ended up on this page, so you must have scanned our QR code or typed in the URL. Thanks for doing that!
We don’t want to take away from your good time with too many words, so here’s the deal, real quick. LiveWorkPlay is a homegrown charitable organization in Ottawa. One of our founders, Keenan Wellar, grew up just down the street near Carlingwood, had one of his first jobs at Carlington Park, and went to high school on Broadview Avenue. You get the picture, he’s a local boy.
Along with his wife Julie Kingstone, Keenan started LiveWorkPlay in 1995 to help Ottawa the community welcome and include individuals with intellectual disabilities and autistic people to live, work, and play as valued citizens, and along with 30 staff and 150 volunteers, they are pretty good at it. This includes helping people with disabilities get a home of their own, a job, and have a good time with friends at places like Boston Pizza, like we’re doing in the photo!
Almost done: we just want you to know about three different ways you could help us make Ottawa a more inclusive community.
You could volunteer! We can match you with a person with a disability who would like to spend time with you enjoying a shared interest (it could be watching hockey and drinking beer, going for a hike, watching a movie, playing video, games, and more!). We also host Friday Night Meetups, just about every Friday all year long, where as a volunteer you’d be there just to enjoy yourself along with a small group of people with disabilities and other volunteers. It could be enjoying a music festival, watching the World Cup in a bar, or just going for ice cream and a walk. There are several different gatherings every Friday, and you can choose what you enjoy, and/or what is close to home for you!
You could help us find a job for a person with a disability! We currently have partnership with more than 150 employers across the city, but unemployment for the population we service is really bad (80%) and we are always looking for new employers. You don’t need to hand us a job, we are just asking for a connection – help us get a conversation started and we can take it from there. If you are a business owner or hiring manager, we can help you fill positions for just about any type of job.
You could make a donation! We appreciate monthly donations or one-time donations, but even a small monthly donation can be a big help to us, because when hundreds of generous people are chip in with a monthly donation, it adds up, and it helps us with consistent funds to do what we do to make Ottawa a better community for all.