January 2026 President's Report

The Board of Directors and I wish you a New Year filled with joy, love and good health.

 

Breaking news!!!

Our new web site is live. Designed by Leslie Horan, it brings a more modern look and feel.

You can view it at the same address: www.HelpOurStudentsProgram.com

Your comments are welcome.

 

Despite many Canadian charities experiencing a decline in donations, the Help Our Students Program is enjoying a modest growth. This is due to the growing number of monthly donors and a new all-time high in the month of December.  We raised $226,438, compared to the previous all-time high of $185,314 raised last December.

We received a wonderful response from our Giving Tuesday appeal and so many new and renewing donors donated after we published our ad in the Ottawa Citizen on December 6th. (You can view the ad below this report.)

Every charity needs two types of donors: a. recurring donors – we have 30 monthly donors who have been donating for at least 10 years, and b. new donors without whom we rapidly shrink.  I don’t wish to bore you with numbers, but I want to demonstrate the importance of renewing each year and encouraging others to donate for the first time.  If you start with 100 donors and a renewal rate of 80%, you have 80 donors after year 1, then 64 donors after year two, then 51 donors in after year 3. It doesn’t take long to lose all your donors.

This December, there were 68 monthly donations and 117 one-time donations, of which 43 were new donors.

Due to the support of the Board of Directors who pays all administrative and marketing costs, we are still proud to say that 100% of your donation goes directly to help a hard-working student living in difficult financial circumstances. We know first-hand the difficult life some of these students live. Without your help, they would be under enormous pressure to leave school to get a low-paying job or to work longer hours to support themselves and their family.

This year, we are supporting 279 students, at least four students in every Ottawa high school. This represents an increase from the three students per high school that we supported last year. We made that decision because we wanted to reduce our reserve to a reasonable level.

If donations continue at the current level until the end of June, I am very hopeful that we will be able to continue to support at least four students per school for the 2026-27 school year. That’s 61 students who would not otherwise be helped to stay in school and graduate.

Our support is life-changing.

And it’s all thanks to you.

 

 

Richard Lussier

Co-Founder and President

 

Some housekeeping:

1. If you’ve donated at least $100 since our last AGM in January 2025, you will receive notice of the next AGM, to be held in February. You will be asked to request a link to the virtual meeting if you are interested in taking part in the meeting.

2. We are still looking for volunteers to act as HOST Ambassadors, being our liaison to schools. We currently have seven Ambassadors, and they have told us how much they enjoy working with the schools and meeting the students who will receive our HOST Award. The work requires 2-4 hours a week until things settle down in January.

We have vacancies in the following sectors (schools in brackets):

• Ottawa Center (Brookfield, Canterbury, Hillcrest, Ridgemont, St. Patrick’s, St. Pius X)

• Ottawa West (Bell, Sir Guy Carleton, Sir Robert Borden, St. Paul, Woodroffe)

• Outskirts West (Frederick Banting, Maplewood, Sacred Heart, West Carleton)

• Outskirts East & South (Osgoode Township, St. Joseph)

If you are interested, please contact me at hostprogram@rogers.com.

 

Nous avons des écoles francophones à la recherche d’ambassadeur permanent :

Maurice-Lapointe, Paul-Desmarais, Pierre-de-Blois et Pierre-Savard.

Si une ou plusieurs écoles vous intéressent, contactez-moi à hostprogram@rogers.com.