736 Outreach Corporation

736 Outreach got its start in July of 2009. That’s when a new slate of directors replaced the original board that had been in charge of the funds.

The transition was not smooth. The former directors were reluctant to hand over financial and administrative documents and give the incoming directors access to the bank account. Again, that chapter of the story in Part Two.

By late 2010, the conflict had been resolved, and the new board was able to make a crucial change. They closed down the original non-profit corporation and set up a new one. They called it 736 Outreach.

The new corporation was more diverse. Its board of directors included a lawyer, a mining executive and three ministers. Two members were from the Bathurst United congregation. The late Ray Harris had been on the former board. Margaret Sumadh was part of the new slate. She became secretary of 736 Outreach.

“It was something that was new. The idea was very new. Going from funds from a church, building, a lot of money, how it would be used, whether it would go into the general coffers or whether it would be used for something specific. Um, very different, because if you’re using it for something different, the institution of the church can lose control. So it’s not just the sense of using losing control, but it’s the sense of responsibility. And it was a lot of money. So I think that was part of the feeling of, of, um, taking it taking it slowly. Um, uh, myself and one, at least one other in the group are pretty socialist, radical shit disturbers  . And wanted to do something really radical with it and not just paint the the church. It had to be used for something that, uh, that followed the teachings were given. ~ MS

One of the clergy recruited was Reverend Martha ter Kuile, the minister at Bloor Street United. Her church was just a few blocks from where Bathurst United held its services—the chapel in Trinity-St.Paul’s. The congregation moved out of the Bathurst street building in 1985.

Martha ter Kuile recalls one of the crucial discussions among the new directors. Whether to use only the fund’s income, or to issue grants that would deplete the resource.

“If you had if you had a million and a half dollars and you wanted to preserve the capital, you were probably not going to be spending more than, oh, absolute most $100,000 a year. Right? Um, and really, that doesn’t go very far. And really, that doesn’t. And also, you become one of the, you know, zillion little funds that people apply for because if, let’s say you had $100,000 a year and that’s probably generous, that’s probably more than we would have had if we would if we’d been doing it that way. Uh, and then that you would probably have only so each grant would probably be, you know, maximum $10,000, you know, and then you’d have to so you’d have to evaluate the grants, you’d have to then evaluate. I mean, you’d have to you’d have to evaluate in order to determine what your, what your, um, allocations were going to be. And then you’d have to evaluate how they did, and then you’d have to, you know, like it just seemed like a little that the, the administration of a small grant, um, facility like that would be unduly onerous for everybody. It was just too much”. 

Martha also said the directors were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the original group:

“We were we were all a bit freaked out by the by the fact that our predecessors had never spent a cent. Like, they’re just they’re just been sitting on this money and and as I say, none of us really understood why. And, and I think we were so we were quite determined that that would not happen to us. We would not do that. Um, but also I think. Well, for various reasons, for that reason and, uh, and in order to avoid this, this business of setting up yet another small grant thing because there were already about three in the presbytery at the same time, um, we said, okay, well, okay, we’re going to we’re just going to say, let us spend this money. We are objective, it’s going to be to get this money spent. The intention was to pour it into the community. Let’s have the faith that if we pour it into the community, it will do its own work. We may not track it ten years from now. We may not say, well, that was a dollar that came from Bathurst, but we will, we’ll we’ll really invest. We’ll sort of do a, we’ll front end load our investment and we won’t, we won’t set ourselves up as a board that is going to be still here ten years when the next crowd comes along to say, why are you so incompetent? We’re going to kick you out and take over.”

The 736 Outreach leaders wanted to award at least some grants before the end of the year. So, they looked at agencies that had already been approved by the Mission and Outreach Committee of Toronto Southeast Presbytery. Not enough money was available to give everyone all they had asked for. 736 Outreach could help top up their budgets.

The cheques were sent out just before Christmas. They totalled 160 thousand dollars.

The largest went to the Christian Resource Centre—a United Church mission in Regent Park. The CRC was converting a building into eighty apartments for people who were living on the streets or in shelters. The building was named after its address—40 Oak street. 736 Outreach donated 50 thousand dollars to help pay for a tenant services coordinator and furniture. The CRC received additional funds in the fall and again in 2013, for a total of 100 thousand dollars.

The idea of helping United Church affiliated agencies as a first step came from Deborah Hart. Deborah was on presbytery’s Mission and Outreach Committee. She and her fellow directors visited 40 Oak Street on the eve of its opening in mid-June 2012. They dined with some of the staff, held a board meeting and were taken on a tour.

“Just the dream for people to have, they said, a place where they could close and lock their own door, where their stuff would be safe and they could sleep in peace. Um, sheltered, uh, was big because in many of the shelters and places they had been, that was one of the key things, was the lack of sense of peace and worry about what little possessions they did have and who might take them in the night, or be there, or be kept awake with the snoring and the mental health issues of other people. So just this. It was like they won the lottery. The people who got chosen for those, um, those units. It was so satisfying just to to know you played a small part in this, uh, dream.”

One leader from the Christian Resource Centre wrote that the grant was “terrific news…one of those Christmas miracles that one hears about”.

In all, 12 organizations received pre-Christmas cheques. The Davenport Perth Community Ministry got 10 thousand dollars. 15-thousand went to the Massey Centre for Women, now the Abiona Centre For Infant and Early Mental Health. Second Base, a shelter for homeless youth in Scarborough, received five thousand dollars. 

Ten thousand dollars was given to Lake Scugog Camp to help provide a camping experience for inner-city young people. Moorelands Community Services also received 10 thousand dollars. Moorelands was providing after-school programs for children and young people in communities that included Flemingdon Park and Thorncliffe Park. 

“Your donation will have a lasting impact, helping to sponsor a camper in need enriching aspects of our program and aiding in the purchase of essential new equipment”

—Lake Scugog Camp

“Many, many thanks…for this generous gift. The funds will be used to further our work with children living in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in this city”

—Executive Director, Moorelands

As the recipients were opening their surprise Holiday Season letters, Margarert Sumadh was looking toward the year ahead when applications would start flowing in from organizations not connected to the United Church.

Days before Christmas, Margaret shared her thoughts in an email to one social agency leader who had offered to help.  

“The process for next stage goes beyond the immediate United Church funded agencies. This is because the Bathurst United Church from whose building this money comes has had a history of making money available at the margins. We want to honour that, and so…we hope to reach further for further disbursements”.

Over the next six years, 736 Outreach would transform Bathurst United’s vision into a living, community-based reality.

Twenty-one applications arrived for the second tranche of funding. This, according to the minutes of the board’s November meeting. 

Almost all of the requests were approved; with nine agencies receiving multi-year funding.  Among them…

• Boss/Doorsteps (youth initiative in Jane/Finch)
• Eastdale Collegiate  (high school program on key skills for vulnerable youth)
• Ralph Thornton Centre  (community engagement)
• Riverdale Food Working Group  (food security project supported by the South Riverdale Community Health Centre)

The food security project in South Riverdale received 15 thousand dollars for 2012 and 14 thousand dollars annually for the next two years. The Ralph Thornton Centre was given a total of 50 thousand dollars over three years. Eastdale Collegiate received 24 thousand over two years. Boss/Doorsteps (Doorsteps Neighbourhood Services) got 20 thousand dollars over two years. 

The autumn 2012 funding totalled just over 244 thousand dollars; with the cheques going into the mail in December.

Over the year, more than 50 groups received donations; some for a single year, many for two or three years. As of mid-December, the net value of the fund stood at about one million dollars. According to the December 31 balance sheet, 638,482 dollars had been disbursed.

One other item had come to the board’s attention in 2012. The Fred Victor organization was seeking 150 thousand dollars toward a Pan Am Games supportive housing project. More on that controversial request later in this article. 

In May 2012, Deborah Hart received a letter asking for a grant that was in a category of its own.

The letter was from Mark Aston, the Executive Director of Fred Victor. The organization is one of Toronto’s most well-known social service agencies, with decades of financial support from the United Church of Canada.

Aston thanks Deborah for the opportunity to apply for funding. 736 Outreach had talked informally with Aston, via Deborah herself and the chair of 736 Outreach, Frank van de Water. Frank was also a trustee at Eglinton St. George’s United Church.

The letter was a request for 150 thousand dollars. The grant would help Fred Victor create supportive housing as a legacy of the 2015 Pan/Para-Pan American Games. Part of the Athlete’s Village would be converted into more than 100 apartments in a building in the Canary District of the West Don lands. The aim was to see tenants move into the 10-storey building in spring 2016.

The Executive Director noted that the project reflected Fred Victor’s mission to provide housing for those who are homeless and who have special needs. As well, it fit in with the 736 Outreach mandate to promote healthy communities for people who are marginalized and disadvantaged.

Mark Aston wasn’t seeking an immediate cheque, just a commitment that 736 Outreach would sign on as one of the larger donors.

Aston asked that his letter remain confidential until the Ontario Infrastructure and Lands Corporation had officially announced the project. That happened on October 11, 2012 by way of two news releases. One from Fred Victor, the other from the Ontario government.

In November, the 736 Outreach directors held a preliminary discussion. That’s when they placed 50 thousand dollars into Margaret’s spreadsheets without noting any date. Over the winter and early spring, the matter simmered on a back, or one might say, side-burner as Margaret and her colleagues processed other applications and Aston looked for additional sources of funding. He wanted to recruit 10 donors; each one for 150 thousand dollars.

The situation changed dramatically in May 2013.

The 736 Outreach directors decided to seek a face-to-face meeting with the Fred Victor leaders. Martha ter Kuile would make arrangements.

It turned out, Fred Victor was one step ahead. A luncheon/presentation for donors was to take place in a couple of weeks; and the 736 Outreach directors were invited. Frank attended along with Martha and Deborah.

But the 736 directors also got their separate meeting. An evening get together, two days after the luncheon. Mark Aston brought along his director of communications and fundraising, Jane Truemner. The idea of allocating so large a sum to a single project was now uppermost in the directors’ minds.

Martha had told the Fred Victor leaders that there was a “range of views”. As she mentioned in this note to her fellow board members:

“I have let them know that there is a range of views within our Board about 1) what we did agree to, and 2) what we ought to agree to, regarding the PanAm Supportive Housing project. So they do know that this is not just a courtesy call, and are aware that some Board members are eager to have more detailed information.” 

(email, June 25, 2013)

The director who had the strongest misgivings was Margaret. After the Fred Victor luncheon and follow up discussion with the project leaders, she reached out confidentially to some close friends at Bathurst United—the current minister, Ralph Carl Wushke, the pastoral associate, Frances Combs, and two other members of the congregation.

“I am asking advice. The burden feels heavy. I am at the moment objecting to a decision that would be made by a majority vote of the Board. I am being asked to reconsider my objection.”

(email, June 27, 2013)

Margaret reminded her fellow worshippers of the spirit of 736 Outreach: supporting smaller projects that otherwise would stand little chance of obtaining funds. The Fred Victor supportive housing, on the other hand, was a large undertaking that should be attractive to mainstream donors. She noted that 736 Outreach had already awarded grants to the Christian Resource Centre, an affiliate of Fred Victor.

“I am really struggling with this. I think of how many smaller groups can be kept going for that money. 10% of the total funds.”

(email, June 27, 2013)

Ralph Carl told Margaret that he understood her concerns. Still, he saw value in supporting at least one effort to build permanent infrastructure for disadvantaged people.

“That is also in my mind a positive legacy for Bathurst and the 736 Corp. Bricks and mortar are more very costly projects, but shelter can be a quasi permanent blessing. So, as I think about it, this is a different kind of support than operational support for smaller NGOs, but housing and homelessness has long been a deep concern of people at Bathurst so I can also see this as a positive option”.

(email, June 29, 2013)

One of the congregation members wrote to say that the spirit and purpose of the Fred Victor project was “very in tune with” the mission of Bathurst United and 736 Outreach.

The other member noted that the project was for those who are disadvantaged. He wondered if 736 Outreach funding might well make a difference if otherwise Fred Victor was to fall short of its funding goal. 

Frances Combs told Margaret not to feel any need to go along with the majority. She could simply stand aside, if the board was following a consensus model for decision-making. 

As the 736 Outreach directors got closer to taking a vote, the chair tried to reassure Margaret and bring her on side. Frank Van de Water admitted that the Fred Victor plans did not meet “the exact guidelines” for grants that the board had agreed to in 2011. But he encouraged Margaret to consider the agencies that Fred Victor would be partnering with. All of those groups, he argued, would qualify for funds under the guidelines.

Frank cited five examples. They included PACE Independent Living,  the Royal Canadian Legion, LOFT Community Services and Athletes with Physical Disabilities. Each group would be allocated a number of apartments, all of which would qualify for government rental support; and LOFT would be guaranteeing the rent on its 25 units.

The chair said he had read an 80-plus page background paper and concluded that the business plan was “well thought out and achievable”. He hoped that Margaret would come to the same view as other directors who saw the proposal as a “lasting gift to the community”. 

Frank said if everyone agreed to the grant, a written resolution would suffice. Otherwise, he would convene a meeting and conduct a vote. Frank ended his email by suggesting that Margaret talk further with him about her concerns if she wanted to.

I asked Margaret about the Fred Victor project in early summer 2024,  when we recorded an audio interview in the backyard of her home.

“We had decided that we wanted to give to make a difference. So this would indicate smaller groups. Um, and I but I think people were getting tired by then. Um, you know, there is a bit of thinking, a bit of effort, a bit of commitment to it. And, uh, I’m not saying that was all of it, but I think that that has an element of it. And the, the, the other thing was, though, that I felt very strongly this, if you look at the other funders, there going to be groups like banks or big organisations, um, that have that money that need to get, you know, need to be able to donate it somewhere, and this would be a good place for them to do it. And indeed, as far as I know, the other donors were more or less like that. That wasn’t our place in society to go alongside there with with what was essentially was the rest of our, our funding. So I did argue, um. But I, um, I didn’t get a majority for sure. It was. I was the only one. So it’s a it’s a big it’s, um. Yeah, it’s it’s still would be very upsetting for me not to stick with that.”

Margaret was the only director who voted against the grant. By the time the application had come before the board, the other Bathurst United director, Ray Harris, had been forced to step away from 736 Outreach due to ill health.

The other directors recognized that the request was exceptional. For one thing, it far exceeded what most other groups had been given. Did the Pan/Para-Pan American Games project genuinely reflect the vision of Bathurst United and the 736 Outreach criteria? Deborah Hart thought it did.

“One of the goals in out of those meetings, the two luncheons was to help put some larger amounts into affordable housing, into housing need, um, where it could really make a difference. And, um, a lot of the projects we funded were the risky, innovative kinds of things. But this and the Christian Resource Center were a way of having a lasting legacy, contributing to, um, things that were important to both the United Church forever. Fred Victor was Methodist before the United Church even was in existence. So it has a long time history in connection with the United Church. And I probably where Margaret and I differed was Margaret saw it as, as, um, probably a bigger organization, like more like a corporation itself that could probably get funding from other places, but they were always short on their budgets and had to really work hard for their funding. And I didn’t feel that, uh, or I guess I felt because they, um, they were successful, t he city trusted them with the work and gave them more to do. And we’ve seen that since then. Even through Covid, they were the ones that did a lot of the housing and took over for the city to help out in emergency shelters and housing. Um, they’ve acquired more and more housing, some for women, some for youth, some for short term, long term. Um, so they, they know what they’re doing. And it felt like there’s nothing wrong with supporting something just because they’re good at it and successful and big doesn’t mean it’s wrong to support them.”

I also talked about the controversial proposal with Martha ter Kuile. We recorded in a park near her home in September 2024. For Martha, the Fred Victor project was in keeping with the mixed portfolio approach that 736 Outreach Corporation had adopted.

“In the context of why should our little fund give them a big whack of money? To me, that was that was kind of the embodiment of our multi-pronged strategy. That that was actually that, you know, we could spend some money over here on the bicycle repairman. And if. If it just if it, you know, if it just kind of never really went anywhere. Okay. Fair enough. You know. Um. So there’s that, that, that question, the, you know, the you can I guess what I thought was that you can be absolutely sure that a dollar that you give to Fred Victor is going to be well spent and carefully administered and and all of that stuff. On the other hand, I mean, if you don’t want to spend all your money on that kind of thing, because then why even have such a thing like and so and I think that’s where Margaret was coming from. Like what’s like what what you know, in a certain sense, what what does this say about the character of the Bathurst Fund? Um, and so, uh, because to me, there was, I mean, part of the, you know, this, this multi, um, or, or kind of mixed, mixed portfolio strategy was that you have you know, you have some there’s kind of a range of of assured effectiveness as well. Right. So you so again give it to Fred Victor. It’s, it’s effective. It’s going to it’s going to be good. And and and they had a they had a very interesting and very interesting and particular need that for that amount of money at that moment. Um, and so, so um, so I was in favour of Bathurst being part of that, being part of something that was even though, even though because it’s so big, we were so small in it, um, I still thought that was good. You know, for us, at   same time, I thought it was also good that we were we were we were the only donor for those three bicycles or whatever they were, you know, or the bicycle repair kit that he bought with the money. Um, so Those were, so it was specifically in that spirit of having a mixed portfolio that I particularly liked, the, um, the, the Fred Victor one.”

Judging from the email exchanges, it would appear that the 736 Outreach directors felt they were close to a decision as summer 2013 approached. But that wasn’t so.It was December before the issue was put to a vote.

Margaret’s archive includes an email from late October. Martha ter Kuile wrote to the chair, saying the board should make a “clear response” to Fred Victor. She suggested the chair call a meeting, even if just for the one item. Instead, Frank van de Water put the matter on the agenda for the regular meeting, December 3, 2013.

The minutes note that as of that date, Fred Victor had commitments from only three of 10 prospective partners. So, the motion in favour carried conditions:

“Motion to approve the grant to Fred Victor for 150,000 dollars for the Pan Am Housing Project subject to the condition that the project proceeds.  Fred Victor will be advised that the grant has been approved and that the funds will be held by 736 Outreach in a secure investment with the interest payable to 736 Outreach until the end of December 2014. Provided that Fred Victor has confirmed that it is proceeding with the project, the 150 thousand dollars will be transferred to Fred Victor in January 2015. If the project does not proceed, the Board will consider other uses for the funds”. 

Margaret was the only director to vote against the grant.

As it turned out, the KEYS youth mentoring wasn’t the most successful initiative through which 736 Outreach helped make a difference. So, the community ministry redirected some grant money into a another project, one intimately tied to the gangs and guns trauma. 

A mural. A work of art to honour the victims.

Rieder said it started out with graffiti. Young people would paint tributes on a wall of the community centre. Crews from the housing authority would cover it, only for the graffiti to reappear in a day or so. Eventually with profanities.

So, Rieder suggested the idea of a mural. He did fund-raising with one of the families who had lost a child; and with some grant money added in, the community was able to hire a graffiti artist:

“And, um, the first thing that he had asked them is, like, what did you guys do in common? And he said and they said, you know, basketball. So he focused on a basketball player and doing a slam dunk and a slam dunk of the sun and, uh, and then the youth there, their thought was to have doves representing the youth who had lost their lives. And so there was a ribbon underneath each dove that had their names, either their street name that they’d go by or their full name. And this project was a very healing initiative in the community. One of the brothers of Skinner, who was shot a couple of years prior to that.  Skinner would come by and he would take his his his hand and kiss his lips to his hand and then touch the picture where the dove of his brother was. So, it was a very healing kind of initiative to do this memorial painting for youth that had lost their lives in  the Firgrove community”.

At first, the mural showed 10 doves, representing young people who were killed in gun/gang violence over 15 or so years. But the creators soon realized that two more doves should be added. One, to remember a young mother who was unable to escape a fire because someone was holding a door shut.

Rieder recalled a poignant encounter with the woman’s daughter:

“One day, she came by the office, and, and she was chewing on a freezie and, you know, sitting on my steps because the mural was right on the community ministry wall. And I asked her, can I get some scissors for that? And she said, no, it’s okay. Auntie Lorraine’s going to get me some scissors. And so I’m sitting there with her and and she points up at the mural and points to one of the doves and says, that’s my mom. And I almost cried right there. Actually, I went to the parking lot, had a good cry, and came back. And I asked her, you know, what do you think about that? And she’s still chewing on the freezie and she gives me one of these a thumbs (up). And I went away I said, this mural is priceless in that this young girl can end up, and she was just a baby when her mom died. And so, she probably didn’t even know her mom, other than she knew that one of these doves had her mother’s name on it.”

As of this writing (early 2015) fate of the Jane Finch memorial mural is uncertain.

The building that housed the Community Ministry was demolished to make way for a new design for the social housing neighbourhood. The mural was dismantled and placed in storage at York University. Rieder says it’s not possible to say where, or if, the mural will be on public display in the years ahead.

The 736 Outreach grants also helped pay for skills-training for young people who wanted to land their first jobs. This was achieved through an initiative called NAYEC, or Neighbourhood Action Youth Employment Committee. Rieder said black youth in Toronto had more difficulty finding jobs simply because of the colour of their skin:

“So in order to give the a leg up, um, we created this Neighborhood Action Youth Employment Committee. And one of the things that we recognized right away is that there was a barrier to youth being hired. Uh, with Parks and Rec, many youth in the community would be hired either for the summer program or the spring and the fall program. But one of the prerequisites was that they had to have first aid training, and first aid training is anywhere from about 75 to $100. And if you have limited income, you just don’t have that opportunity. So we figured we’d like to provide first aid training for youth in the community. And that became the impetus then for a larger program. And so 736 did fund us, um, providing opportunities for youth to get first aid training. And then we expanded that to a program called Passport to Employment and basically looking at providing all kinds of different training opportunities a very quick, you know, so one was first aid, another was customer service, food handling and Highfive training, which was working with children. So those were the four key kind of trainings that we provided to youth who were in school. And then for youth out of work and out of school, we provided training first in forklift training as well as first aid and then also, um, smart serve. So people that were wanting to work in a bar or restaurant serving alcohol, they could have this training called smart serve. And so 736 was kind of that mustard seed that grew into a big tree.”

More than a quarter of a million dollars as a New Year begins. A portfolio managed by TD Waterhouse and monitored by a veteran mining executive and chartered accountant. 

In his role as president of 736 Outreach, Frank Van de Water needed to make sure that enough investments were sold in time to cover the grant cheques. In 2015, he was acutely mindful of one more crucial concern. Making sure the 150 thousand earmarked for Fred Victor wouldn’t get even slightly whittled away by a surprise market downturn close to when the funds were to be handed over. 

And so it was that by early spring, Frank was asking his fellow directors to consider how soon they should liquidate the holdings and arrive at December with a modest cash balance.

In mid April, he reminded the board that the fund was more than 90 per cent in equities at a time when increased volatility was expected. There could be “losses as well as profits to be made in the coming months”. 

“What the directors need to consider is whether we wish to become conservative and sell the investments to hold cash, which earns next to nothing, or delay doing this until we make the disbursements”.

Frank was seeking a consensus on what to tell the people at TD Waterhouse: liquidate to meet the June disbursements, collapse the entire fund at that time, or let TD decide when it would be best to sell.

The archival record suggests that the board members readily agreed to move into cash, totally and immediately.

On May 21, Frank sent out a draft resolution, instructing TD Waterhouse to sell the investments and place the cash into an interest-earning account. His email noted that “TD advises that there is an ever present risk of a market correction that could effect the value of the portfolio negatively without warning.” The fund stood at about 266 thousand dollars.

The directors realized that the balance of 18 thousand dollars was actually about eight thousand. Toronto Urban Native Ministry had come through with a satisfactory update; so 10 thousand dollars had to be considered spent, so to speak. 

From what was left, the Board put aside some dollars for end-of-project items:

• Closing the investment account
• hosting a dinner for the Board members
• preparing a history of 736 Outreach and its predecessor, the Bathurst Street United Church Corporation.

Those expenses would leave about six thousand dollars. So, Margaret and Deborah talked about one or two final donations. They ended up accepting a request from fellow director, Beth Moore.

Beth is a member of Birchcliff Bluffs United Church. In 2016, the congregation was raising money to create a drop-in centre for LGTBQ young people in the older, south Scarborough district. The centre would be in the church basement, and would offer a safe space and programming that focused on food and education/counselling. The Birchcliff Bluffs Affirming Ministry Group was overseeing the project.

In correspondence with Deborah and Margaret, Beth said a grant would help get the initiative up and running (two evenings per month) for fall 2016.

“I think it fits very well within the 736 objects and some seed funding assistance could make it possible to get this badly needed program underway”.

On June 30, the 736 Board approved what would be the final disbursement from the sale of the Bathurst United building. Six thousand dollars for Birchcliff Bluffs was relatively modest. But combined with other funding, the money helped create Toby’s Place, a safe space for LGBTQ2S+ youth.

The cheque to TUNM was posted right away, since it was part of multi-year funding. But the new grant for Toby’s Place had to be held until the directors had put their signatures on formal resolutions. That happened immediately after the holiday season.

There were three resolutions, dated January 2017. They were to ratify decisions made via email.

1. A grant in the amount of six thousand dollars to Birchcliff Bluffs United Church for use in the support of the Toby’s Place new ministry be approved.
2. The Corporation’s remaining funds be used to pay for the preparation of a final report on the work of the Corporation and meeting expenses for the final meeting of the Directors/Members, provided that should there be any funds remaining after paying those costs such funds shall be transferred to Bathurst Street United Church for use in its outreach ministries.
3. The Corporation request the approval of Toronto Conference to dissolve by surrendering its charter after its assets have been distributed and its final income tax return has been filed and assessed.

Beth Moore declared a conflict regarding the grant to Birchcliff Bluffs and Margaret Sumadh and Ray Harris declared conflicts because they were members of Bathurst United.

The cheque for Toby’s Place was in the mail before the middle of January. However, another whole year would go by before Bathurst United received what was left in the bank.

It was January 2018 before Rob Metcalf and Margaret closed the account. Margaret then delivered a bank draft to the church. Two thousand and thirty-two dollars and 29 cents. Rob signed the covering letter:

Bathurst Street United ChurcH
To whom it might concern,

I enclose a cheque for the balance of the funds disbursed from the original Bathurst Street United Church Corporation funds from the sale of the Bathurst Street United Church building. The funds were disbursed to provide resources and support to organizations within the bounds of  the City of Toronto, Ontario in their efforts to work for and with the disadvantaged and marginalized and to work in partnership with other organizations dedicated to serving the community which have objects similar in whole or in part to the objects of the Corporation.

Yours sincerely,
Robert K. Metcalf, Treasurer

Why did this part of 736 Outreach’s work take so long? The archive suggests it was due to routine legal steps. 

On the day the bank account was closed, Rob wrote to his colleagues, telling them that he had mailed the final return to the Canada Revenue Agency. One more chore off the list.

Note as well resolution number three, above. Before it could submit any closing down documents to the Ontario Government, 736 Outreach needed approval from the Toronto Conference of the United Church. In church governance, Conference was the “supervising court” of 736 Outreach.

For Toronto Conference to deal with the matter, it required a resolution from not only the directors of 736 Outreach, but also its members. Since the directors were the only members, all that was needed was the same signatures on a separate resolution. It read… 

“Resolved that the Corporation dissolve by surrendering its charter after all of its remaining assets have been distributed, its final income tax return has been files and assessed and the Toronto Conference Executive has approved the dissolution…”

Beth Moore sent the paperwork to Toronto Conference for its executive meeting on February 8, 2017. A week later, the Executive Secretary wrote to confirm its approval:

“that Toronto Conference consent to the request of 736 Outreach Corporation to dissolve by surrendering its charter after its assets have been distributed and its final income tax return has been filed and assessed effective January 27, 2017.”

With the Toronto Conference approval now in hand, the rest of 2017 was a waiting period since the final tax return couldn’t be sent in until the end of the year. Once that was done and the bank account closed, it was finally possible to let the Ontario government know. Or, in legal terminology, file an “Application to Surrender the Charter” of 736 Outreach. Beth Moore took that action in January 2018.

So, the rest of 2017 was a waiting period? Not totally. At least not for the 736 Outreach secretary. Margaret was sorting through piles of documents. Copies of agendas and minutes from meetings, emails back and forth, reports from the grant recipients, legal forms for incorporation.

She was collecting information to go into a final report on the work 736 Outreach began in September 2011. And she was thinking about how much of the materials should be offered to the United Church archives. In one email in late February, she wrote, “I am snowed under with info to go in report…just slogging through”. She mentioned that her son was coming from Dublin for a week at the end of March, and she wanted to be free for his visit.

Margaret’s compilation included spread sheets listing the number of organizations that were supported, the amounts of the grants and over what years. Also, copies of the application form and the policy adopted for judging the requests.

The 736 Outreach directors held their final meeting—a celebratory dinner—on December 1st, 2017. The group approved a brief final report, running a little less than one-and-a-half pages. The document opened with the formation of the corporation in 2009 and highlighted its accomplishments over the years. Along with the report, a summary of the grant recipients, the work they did and how much money they had received.

The report ended with these words:

“As 736 Outreach draws to a close, the Board of Directors believes it has dealt wisely with the funds entrusted to it and has made a difference in the life of 53 organizations as they seek to deal on the front lines with those facing poverty and marginalization in our City of Toronto. It has been an honour for us to serve in this capacity”.

As noted above, the bank account was closed early in the New Year, with the remaining funds going to the Bathurst United congregation. Beth Moore then submitted the papers to close down the corporation. The Ministry of Government and Consumer Services declared 736 Outreach Corporation dissolved as of January 10, 2018.