Homeless outreach work scaled back; but Macarthy Whyzel still looking to provide care packages to Tri-Cities residents in need

Correction: Macarthy Whyzel attends Douglas College, not Simon Fraser University

After a year and a half, Macarthy Whyzel is winding down some of the outreach work of TheUpliftingGroup, a group he started to support unhoused people in the Tri-Cities.

At one point, Whyzel was handing out water bottles and snacks packs to homeless people outside 3030 Gordon Avenue six times a week.

The Douglas College student is set to finish his studies this summer, and he’s already started a new job with YWCA that will be full-time come September. He no longer has the student-schedule flexibility that allowed him to pour around 30 hours each week to serving people who are homeless.

He’s still collecting donations from community members to make care packages. But instead of him and his volunteers handing them out, he’s now donating them to other service organizations in the Lower Mainland to do so. (If anyone wishes to contribute, they can drop off donations in a bin at 2986 Forestridge Place. They are currently looking for juice boxes, water, socks, non-perishable snacks, hygiene items and winter jackets).

“I had no intention of ending it, with my school coming to an end,” Whyzel said. “I wanted to keep the organization alive.”

After months of doing outreach in the Tri-Cities (mostly at 3030 Gordon), where he and other volunteers provided people with daily meals, responded to overdoses, and connected folks with resources, he said he has gotten close with many of the community members.

“These are people who grew up in the Tri-Cities. We went to the same schools — different times, obviously. But, you know, people from our community that I got to know quite well and supported over a year and a half.”

While Whyzel said he is sad to cease his direct outreach work, he’s excited to find a new way to support the community. Over his years of working on the streets, he learned that many organizations that do outreach (something he said is important to build rapport and connection with the communities they support) have limited resources in terms of what they can hand out.

“I thought I could definitely be a behind the scenes organization that provides and properly equips other outreach groups,” he said.  “So that when they go out and do the outreach — because it’s really valuable work — at least they’ll have the proper equipment to hand out when they’re out there.”

In the past couple years, he said he has built relationships with different organizations in the Lower Mainland that he now partners with, including the Hope for Freedom Society in the Tri-Cities.

The model is simple, he said. He collects donations from community members at his front door. The organizations let Whyzel know how many care packages they need, Whyzel and his team put them together, and the organizations come and pick them up and then hand them out.

They make a variety of sizes, depending on what the organization needs, and tailor them to the time of year — in the summer, the priority is keeping people hydrated, in the winter, it’s keeping people warm.

Preparing for the transition

Whyzel is aware that ceasing TheUpliftingGroup’s outreach work could leave service gaps in the Tri-Cities, where they had once provided daily meals to unhoused people.

He said they explained the situation to people during their last weeks of outreach.

“So everyone knew. It wasn’t just, ‘hey, one day we’re gone.’”

They also informed other Tri-Cities service providers that TheUpliftingGroup would be ceasing their outreach, letting them know what they had been providing to the unhoused population and seeing if they could fill the voids.

Meanwhile, Whyzel said he hopes this new model for TheUplifitingGroup will allow him to stay involved for decades to come.

“It’s a gap that I’m able to fill, that I can do while working full time, while just living life. I can still support hundreds and hundreds of people in our community on a weekly basis.”