SDC is honoured to embark on a new project of bringing together Waterloo Region's diverse community hubs to envision how they can amplify each other's impact through shared advocacy, collective leadership, and intentional resource-sharing.
UPDATE: The project recruited a part-time Community Developer, Latasha Wilson in October 2025 to support this work. Keep reading for more on the project's goals and guiding values.
Did you know our team was on the United Voices podcast twice this year? The podcast provides a platform to highlight local issues and the work being done on the ground to address them.
1. Voices of Experience: Creating Inclusive Solutions (Feb 2025, Episode 6), a conversation about the role of lived expertise in driving solutions to homelessness, and the upstream work our peer workers in Eviction Prevention are doing to keep people housed.
2. Renovictions: Housing Insecurity in Our Community (Sept 2025, Episode 23), where we spoke about the growing number of people being displaced from their their homes due to "renovictions," and the policy changes needed to curb and reverse this trend.
SDC is thrilled to invite you to the 2025 Ride for Refuge, our annual fundraiser for hope, safety, and freedom. Last year's event saw 13 teams, 76 participants, and 188 donors raise a whopping $18,644! With your support, we're confident we can surpass those numbers and smash this year's $20,000 goal!
SDC is looking for an Ageny Volunteerto support individuals and families with low incomes in accessing the Ontario Electricity Support Program (OESP). SDC is proud to help administer this program, which helps reduce electricity costs for community members struggling with their monthly household expenses. Your role will involve guiding applicants through the process, verifying eligibility, completing applications, and offering general information about the program.
If interested, have a look at the volunteer position details and apply today!
Are you passionate about grassroots organizing, collective action, and reconciliation that goes beyond mere platitudes? SDC is hiring a part-time Community Developer to work in conjunction with our CivicHub Coordinator on a visionary project, where you'll convene local community hubs across Waterloo Region to envision how shared advocacy, collective leadership, and intentional resource-sharing can help to amplify each hub's mission and impact.
If interested, have a look at our job posting and apply by 12am on Sept 7, 2025!
Please read the part of the introductions written by our Board Chair and the executive director to taste the flavour of what 2024 was like for our team. Hope it incites you to read our 2024 Annual Report in full.At a recent staff event, the analogy of a cocoon was offered, and it feels apt to describe the year. We have welcomed back Aleksandra from her sabbatical, to an organization that continues to grow quickly. With the privilege of acquiring more significant multi-year grants, we’ve been able to invest in our programs. Inside the cocoon, staff have been building out the necessary infrastructure to sustain the programs. Processes and documentation never seem to make the highlight reel, but they are so vital to being able to provide service over the long term." Heather Bigelow, Board Chair
"In many traditional cultures, Pine trees represent flexibility, rootedness and longevity. I see SDC being deeply rooted in Waterloo Region communities, growing tall even in harsh conditions, yet bending under the gusts of the shifting social and economic conditions, never to break.
The last decade, we moved locations two times and changed our name, while witnessing an unprecedented growth. Our internal structure had to take an extra weight, while not being able to grow at the same speed. We will continue to evolve our leadership model, to build supports for the team, and grow our financial infrastructure." aleksandra petrovic, executive director
Please join us on Thursday, June 26th (6:00pm - 7:30pm) for our 2025 Annual General Meeting, to be hosted at 23 Water St. North in Kitchener (entrance at Duke St.). We will host a hybrid meeting and doors will open at 5:30pm for the welcoming meet and greet. Whether you plan on attending in-person or virtually, please use the Zoom link to register. Let us know how we can make your participation enjoyable, and we will do our best to meet accommodation needs and dietary preferences.
Come hear about the changes SDC has undergone in 2024, how our teams have reorganized and grown. We will host a conversation after the business meeting about the structures and strategies to continue building our "internal strength". In order to stay true to our mission we will look at integrity in its many forms: financial, structural, staff capacity, culture and governance. Get to know our Board members, reconnect with staff and lived experts, and let us hear what you think about the internal strength SDC needs to build to be a better ally and partner to you.
Following the postponement of our original event, Cutting Through Elections Noise Part 2, we have chosen a new date and name for the rescheduled event! Please join us on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 (7pm - 9pm) for Organizing Beyond Election Cycles - A Forum for Building Community Power. Let's gather as community organizers, advocates, and concerned citizens for a conversation on how the stories we hear and the stories we tell one another can either help maintain the status quo - or inspire hope and action for a more just and compassionate world.
RSVP today to reserve your spot
After two snap elections in 2025 and local political developments that left many of us reeling, it's clear we need to organize beyond election cycles and build our local community power to enable the futures we want. Will you join us on May 20? (Wondering why the original event was postponed? Read more here.)
SDC is honoured to join 60+ organizations working across Ontario to form the Encampment Justice Coalition. Together, we’ve written to Ontario's Premier asking his government to rescind Bill 6, the Safer Municipalities Act.Ontario's homelessness crisis is out of control. Something needs to be done — but it shouldn’t include punishing people forced to live in encampments. They have nowhere else to go. Bill 6, taken directly from failed American policy, won’t make anyone any less homeless. Keep reading to see how you or your organization can join the coalition.
Are you looking for a summer job opportunity that combines community engagement, administration, and media support? SDC is hiring a Community Organiser who'll work closely with the Civic Hub Program Coordinator to support over 50 grassroots groups in the region, many led by equity-deserving communities!
If interested, have a look at our job posting and apply by May 11, 2025!
© Social Development Centre Waterloo Region
23 Water St N, Kitchener, ON Canada N2H 5A4
519-579-3800 | 1-877-579-3859 | sdcwr@waterlooregion.org
Charitable Number: 107987166RR0001