People gathered inside the warmly-lit sanctuary room in Royal City Mission on Wednesday, wiping tears from their eyes while singing a sombre Let it Be by The Beatles.
The previous hour was spent sharing stories of those they’ve lost, firmly saying the person’s name so they’ll be remembered. Many in attendance work with vulnerable community members, like outreach workers and CTS staff.
Attended by roughly 30 people, it was the third community memorial Royal City Mission has held. Before, its members would hold memorials for individual people when someone died – but death has become all too frequent.
“I find it so sad that we actually have to do community memorials. It hurt to say we can’t do individuals because there’s just too many,” said Royal City Mission executive director Pastor Kevin Coghill. “I’ve lost a few good friends in the last while, people I’ve known for a long time.”
Mourners wrote the names of those they wanted to remember on rocks and placed them in a basket. By the end, the basket was brimming with the rocks, which will later be returned to the river.
Some of the names remembered had long passed, but most happened this year. Many died of drug-related causes and were regular visitors at RCM – people Coghill considers to be family.
“We always try to do something that we can then have as a way to say people are remembered. Because I think a lot of people think they don't matter,” he said.
Three years ago, RCM started a memorial tree: a painting with names of lost community members on its leaves.
“Every time someone passes, we print their name on the tree as a way to remember,” he said.
The second tree was introduced more recently, at their second group memorial. They also have a sculpture tree they hang leaves on.
The mission does memorials like this every few months now, “because we do lose a number of people. We offer it to our community and also other agencies, because we find a lot of the frontline workers are struggling with all the death.”
One such person in attendance was Jenn Greenwood, an outreach worker with the Guelph Community Health Centre.
Greenwood was among those who put several names in the basket.
“I work with a lot of folks that are experiencing homelessness, street involved, often using substances, with mental health issues,” she said. “It’s ongoing support, really, whatever that entails in somebody’s life.”
When asked how many people she knows through her work who have died this year, she said she “wouldn’t even know where to start. There has been such an overwhelming amount.”
“This feels like an unprecedented loss in the decades that I've been working in this community,” she said, adding that the driving force seems to be drug poisonings, though “there are other reasons as well.”
According to Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, there were at least 17 suspected drug-related deaths in Guelph between Jan. 1, 2023 and Aug. 31, 2023.
There were five more between Sept. 1 and Sept. 25 – averaging at about one death every five days.
“It's been difficult. Showing up everyday and hearing about new people that you know and care about in the community that are no longer with us, has huge effects on your emotions,” she said. “(Losing somebody) that you’ve formed a significant relationship with is emotionally draining and really difficult.”
She said the memorials have been an important part of grieving for her and other frontline workers, since they don’t often get to attend their funerals.
“So Kevin offering this space for the community to come together and grieve and to remember people is really powerful,” Greenwood said.
“I know our downtown is difficult right now. But the bigger message is, these are humans, these are community members without a place to go. They deserve support, and they deserve respect,” she said.
