2019-11-01 Canadian Living

52 | CANADIAN LIVING NOVEMBER 2019

Hope Totes

Whenever Jennifer Murray-Stokes

drives into Halifax from her home in Hammonds

Plains, Nova Scotia, she grabs some fruit and warm

clothes to give to the people experiencing homeless-

ness who approach her car at certain intersections.

It all started about seven years ago, on the coldest

day that year. She was about to drive home after work

when a man without a coat knocked on the window

of her car asking desperately for money to get to the

nearest shelter. “He was purple-blue and shaking,”

says Jennifer. “It had always been my rule to give

clothes or food, but not money. That day, I gave him

everything I had. I’ve never seen that kind of des-

peration in someone’s eyes.” She picked her kids up

from daycare in tears and, from that day forward,

has tried never to drive into the city empty-handed.

How one Nova Scotian scaled

her family’s chari table habits into a

project that changed their lives.

TEXT SARA CATION

LIFE & COMMUNITY giving back