In the last week, there have been two fires at facilities that serve women in Ottawa.

The first took place on Novemer 8 at the Cornerstone Women’s Shelter, where a woman died of burns. On the weekend, it appears that somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail at a women’s rooming house, also in Centretown. It seems that the women in the rooming house escaped unharmed.

But, as my fellow flack and blogger Ian Capstick points out, this is not only a tragedy for each and every women who was living in one of the properties; it’s a tragedy for the shelter and housing system. We don’t have the flexibility in our system of supportive housing to handle the roughly 40 women who are now homeless.

I can’t do everything for these women. But I can do something. That’s what Ian Capstick’s blog post “Outrage to Action” got me thinking. So I’m willing to spend a couple of hours on Friday afternoon driving around and picking up donations for the women who are now in immediate need of assistance. Ian’s post has a great list of ways to help out. And according to Cornerstone, they could use:

• “Financial contributions … to increase our staff support on a 24 hour basis”
  
• “We would like to replace as many of our residents’ belongings that were lost in the fire as possible….”
• Bus Tickets
• Phone cards provide a way for women to get away and talk with someone privately, or to contact help if they are in need.
• Tim Horton’s Gift Certificates
  
• A supper meal for 20.
  

So, Ottawa bloggers, flacks, and the like — what can we do? I’d be interested in contributing to a supper for 20, but I think that’s a longer-term process. In the meantime, if you have something to give to help out, please leave me a comment, send me an e-mail, or twitter me and I’ll come by on Friday afternoon to pick it up.

Nobody’s asking you to do EVERYTHING. But you can do SOMEthing.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosieobeirne/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

UPDATE: The brilliant Amy Boughner has come up with the idea of passing the hat at Case Study Jam this Thursday. So why not come, and while you’re jammin’, help out a little bit. The money will go to Cornerstone.

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