Celebrating Milestones: Our Charity's First AGM

Last month we had our first ever AGM for our charity arm, Just us; We all Struggle Inc. If you aren’t already aware, Just Us offers free and low-cost counselling to anyone facing financial barriers to getting the help they need for their mental health. 

If you’ve been following our journey for the last two years, you’ll know that in 2022, fuelled by a passion for meaningful change, I decided to formalize this charitable arm of the practice and turn it into an official stand-alone not-for-profit organization. We had reached capacity for what the practice could do to support it, and we needed to source additional funding to continue to meet the needs in the community. 

I was connected with a man named John Eisner, who is well-versed in charitable initiatives having started his own non-profit, SolveYourDebts.com, back in 1994 and grew it into a successful organization. John had just retired when I approached him to guide me  on this massive initiative. I had no clear vision of how it would work, but I somehow managed to rope him in anyway. John joined as our board Chair and helped us recruit our awesome board of directors.

Last month at our AGM, we celebrated the accomplishments of first full year in operation as a charity. 

What it's meant to me to start a charity

For me, just us symbolizes the start of something new; a new approach and a new path to getting everyone, regardless of finances, the help they deserve. It also means generational change – breaking patterns of dysfunction and suffering. It means hope for a brighter healthier future. Mental health is health. Just Us is a result of a desire to solve meaningful problems with creative solutions.

Highlights from our journey

• We had our first board meeting in November 2022 and received charitable status only five months later. It marked hope for clients and clinicians that a better system can, and does, now exist. 
  

• We’ve received funding from various supporters, including community members, businesses and government, which has allowed us to increase our impact and provide over 1500 sessions in our first year to people who told us they wouldn’t have accessed help any other way. 
  

• We hired an Executive Director to really put the time and energy needed into growing and sustaining our programs and our impact. 
  

• We were able to expand our community engagement by partnering with several new organizations such as the Y, TRC, Chroma, 12 Neighbours in Fredericton and more.  

Challenges we face

As I reflect on the single biggest challenge of the last 18 months, I’d say it would be the sheer scope of work – it was and is a lot bigger than I ever imagined. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, so we remain focused on our mission to provide low-cost support to those in need and continue to remove barriers to access.

The second biggest challenge is sustainability – building a name for ourselves as a stand alone entity, and creating the awareness of who we are and what we do. Many of us are used to donating to the same worthy organizations year over year, and it’s hard to build a relationship and trust with new organizations like ours.

There are so many competing needs in our communities and not enough resources to go around. We know it takes time and patience, grit and determination to get where we want to go, and I have no doubt that as a team, we will.

Special thanks

Thank you to John for believing in me and for joining me in paving this path despite not even knowing me.

Thank you to every single board member both past and present who so willingly gave up their time and energy to support this mission as well.

I also want to thank every intern who has grown through our program and contributed to the success of the program, to our ED and interim ED for really giving life to the organization and taking the hand off so it can flourish.

To the staff of LGA who work tirelessly to administratively run both programs and for being there every step of the way.

Thank you to every donor who believed in us and thank you to every client who bet on us and gave us the opportunity to shine a light in their darkness.

In closing, here is a quote from one of our clients who can summarize our organization better than any way I ever could:

“In the last 1.5 years, I have escaped from a domestic abuse situation, gone through a separation and fearful life situation with my children. Counselling has helped give me hope for the future, to not give up and to focus on life strategies to thrive in life. We are all doing much better mentally. Thank you for providing this service to us."

To learn more about Just Us or to make a contribution, please visit justusinc.ca.

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