Mine Safety Solutions is giving Living Space a helping hand by donating 20% of all net sales in their mining gloves to non profit organization.

“I saw the news article regarding that there were 700 homeless and I wanted to make a difference into the community,” said President of Mine Safety Solutions Anthony Gillin.

Gillin says the goal is to try and sell at least 200 pairs of safety gloves, which would mean a great amount of money for Living Space. The gloves are redesigned safety gloves that gives more protection than leading brands.

“What gives these gloves more advantage than the other gloves is the dexterity,” he said. “You got full dexterity, you got impact, cut resistance throughout the whole glove on the MSS1, it reduces vibration. […] So I kind of put everything into one.”

Gillin says he’s considering making donations to other organizations every quarter to help the community.

“I already have eight companies selling from me for now,” he said, “but if we have more companies coming on board that would like to purchase, I will be donating all of this month, 20% of all sales.”

Jason Sereda, Executive Director of Living Space says the move by Gillin and Mine Safety Solutions was welcome.

“Anthony came forward with a great campaign to help raise funds for Living Space,” he said.

20% of all sales at Mine Safety Solutions over the month of March will be going towards Living Space. The safety gloves are something that align with Living Space’s brand.

“It’s a great match-up for Living Space,” said Sereda, “because we’re all about safety. Creating safety for people who are living on the street, safety for people who need access to housing, or safety to people who need access to referrals like mental health agencies. So it’s a great partnership and [it’s] great to have Anthony on board.”

The money raised through the glove sales will go directly to the shelter to help with food costs and other resources like new cots, supplies they need and anything else that would benefit their residency at Living Space.

“Living Space is a brand new organization,” said Sereda, “so we’re in the process of applying for different grants with different levels of the government. But we’re definitely at the mercy of the community to help us out in any way they can.”

Living Space has an occupancy permit for the whole building now. The lower level is an emergency shelter at night and a drop in during the day. On the upper level are 13 transitional units with 7 people living there currently.

“As we work to make more progress here on the main level, we’ll open up our primary care room, our skills development workshop and start bringing in more resources to the centre.”

The company is also slowly increasing their HR department.

“Over the next month or two we’ll be hiring a lot more staff so that we can move to a full 24/7 operation,” said Sereda.

The funds are welcome from Mine Safety Solutions as Living Space continues to fill up.

“We’ve been consistently full since we opened a year ago,” Sereda said, “so we can fit 20 people in the emergency shelter downstairs. Just for safety reasons that’s all we can fit. But we have other people who stay awake at the table all night because there’s no where else to go. So I’m confident that if we had a 50 bed shelter we’d be full every night as well.”

Check out Living Space’s website here, and Facebook page here.

 

Filed under: Local News