Compassionate Community Builder

As Board Member and chair of the Health Services Committee, Father Larry Leger helped Caledon Community Services (CCS) meet provincial requirements and become one of the first agencies funded through the Central West Local Health Integration Network (CWLHIN), one of CCS’s largest funders. In the coming years, he built ongoing relationships with both its board members and staff.

Fr. Larry was no stranger to community involvement prior to joining the CCS board. He arrived to lead Holy Family Parish in Bolton in 2007 and started volunteering with CCS in 2008. When the agency got a grant in 2009 to research poverty, Fr. Larry tapped into his youth ministry relationships to find students affected by poverty for CCS to interview, which led to him holding a CCS board position for nine years. He was awarded a CCS Honorary Life Membership in 2018 before relocating in 2019 to lead a parish in Barrie.

Fr. Larry recalls the poverty study taking place at a time when most people thought poverty was non-existent in Caledon. CCS’ study proved otherwise. He recalls the sobering discovery of countless homeless teens, displaced by family conflict and spending nights couch-surfing. Shocking as well was finding Caledon residents living outdoors in the dead of winter, and seniors forced to choose between eating or heating their homes.

He got a taste of the difficult choices poverty creates while participating in a Food Bank Challenge that gave him just $20 for a week’s worth of food. He once contemplated whether to rescue an apple he saw which had rolled underneath a parked car – he knew it would help alleviate the hunger that would hit him later in the day. Experiences like these helped drive his enthusiastic advocacy for Caledon’s least fortunate residents – he worked tirelessly as a fundraiser for the CCS, both personally and through his parish, which he inspired to sponsor the CCS’s Galas for five years in support of the Exchange.