Twenty joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering welcoming the Chuan Society. After a heartfelt Territorial Acknowledgement, we began our conversation by learning about the Chuan Society:https://www.facebook.com/chuansociety/. A recent ASK Salt Spring guest, you may want to reread that report: https://saltspringexchange.com/2024/07/03/ask-salt-spring-welcomes-the-chuan-society/). 

The Chuan Society was founded in 2017 to address access and equity barriers through collective action. “Chuan” is a corruption of the original Hul’qu’minum name for Mt. Tuam, a sacred space meaning “sweeping down to the sea.” While the original intent was to honour the island’s original place names, Chuan Councillors (similar to Board members but guided by collective agreements rather than hierarchic rules) have since considered renaming the society. Since their founding seven years ago, evolving awareness has convinced them that the use of names is a culturally sensitive process involving permissions, consent, and respect. 

The Chuan Society emphasizes a partnership-based approach intent upon action through collective efforts. Partners, friends, and allies include a wide variety of community nonprofits, including the Mental Wellness Initiative, SSHAN, Restorative Justice, Transitions Salt Spring, and the Social Justice Committee (an interfaith alliance of four of our local churches). 

The Chuan Society leads the community-based Gabriel’s Kitchen (https://www.facebook.com/groups/gabrielskitchen/), feeding multiple generations of Salt Springers with free local, home-cooked, nutritional, and delicious food each Thursday, 4-7 pm at All-Saints-By-The-Sea Anglican Parish on 110 Park Drive. Focused on the connections that grow from preparing and enjoying food together, Gabriel’s Kitchen has, after only a year of operation, become a much-loved Salt Spring institution, feeding somewhere between 50-70 every week, creating that culture of care with every bite. In just one year, volunteers have witnessed new relationships forged and significantly decreased expressions of prejudice among the many who participate.

Kajin spoke eloquently of his faith in the healing value of connections, bridging gaps between us and creating an inclusive community of care. He also spoke of his disturbing observations of the growing polarization in our community. He spoke with sadness of the social violence on Salt Spring, fueling exclusion and prejudice. 

Kajin’s roots are in Singapore, four times larger than Salt Spring geographically but with a population of four million people. . .yet all having somewhere to live. (Yes, these homes are ever-higher skyscrapers, not the model for Salt Spring.) Why, he asked, are so many Salt Springers without safe, secure places to sleep? Observing that the system that produces the problems (settler colonial-capitalism) cannot solve them, the Chuan Society is determined to keep re-orienting that Salt Spring narrative to become one of care and connection, one step at a time. And, he and his team might just succeed for, as one participant said, “Kajin never gives up, always keeping his heart open.” 

Although not the first effort-building connections throughout our community, a number of members of the Chuan team put this theory of care and connection to the test during the winter of 2021-22. With Salt Spring in the grips of COVID as well as a long cold snap, volunteers from a variety of groups erected a Warming Space on Christmas Day 2021. On CRD land, headlines were soon made with four evictions and nine different park locations. 

To some, a frustrating sequence of evictions and roadblocks, Kajin and his Chuan team can pinpoint this audacious and rogue community effort as their crash-course in political education: Salt Spring’s governing, jurisdictional, and enforcing agencies. While the Warming Space was never intended to be a protest or an adversarial process, there were strained moments and an initially tumultuous relationship with CRD staff and Director Gary Holman. Thankfully, Kajin noted that these relationships have improved and evolved. He credited the addition of the Local Community Commission as a welcome mechanism for public engagement and dialogue, noting reconciliation and the development of deeper relationships with Gary Holman, LCC members, and CRD staff.

While the Chuan Society offers a number of important programs, their focus of attention has just turned to The Hearth. ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/thehearth/) Just opened, The Hearth is a community-based, Chuan-led project in the large portable building on the site of the recently-closed Phoenix School at 163 Drake Road. Offering a community space, it will welcome folks from 9:00 am until 8:00 pm every day, beginning with a soft launch of more limited hours while they prepare the space. The Hearth is expected to be fully operational from mid-December until April 1, 2025. A “Meet n’ Greet” launch is currently being planned for the Winter Solstice on Dec 21, with an opening ceremony, community circle, food, and music in the afternoon. Expected to be a chance for the neighbourhood to meet members and organizers of The Hearth, it is hoped that it also inspires others to get involved in the project.

Plans are for the Hearth to be an organic, eclectic set of community-created activities, a people-powered process based on collective agreements, collaboration, and mutual learning, Currently, The Hearth, a has a core team of organizers with an initial team of over 18 enthusiastic volunteers. The Chuan team believe very much that the success of people-centred process is matching collective self-determination with fluid, but robust, organizational guidelines and procedures. While certain components are firm – a warm, communal space with food – details are evolving and will likely include circles focused on mental wellness using Restorative Justice (https://www.rjssi.org/) principles, as well as art, music, body-mind care modalities (such as community acupuncture), and even a modest Tool Library (long on the Chuan Society’s radar).

Sustained by infective enthusiasm, the road to The Hearth has been a journey — not without speed bumps and u-turns — from the Warming Space to now these include: 

• The Chuan Society submitted a proposal to School District 64 hoping to secure the long-term lease of all of this property. CRD was awarded it instead. 
• Chuan proposed locating The Hearth in the house on the Phoenix property. This was rejected by the Local Community Commission, temporarily (12-24 months) allocating the bottom floor of the home — as well as much of the property — to PARC maintenance crew while their new Kanaka facility (https://gulfislandsdriftwood.com/crd-kanaka-road-site-plans-shared/) is being built. 
• As use of the Phoenix site by Chuan was initially determined to be impossible, a room on the little-known second floor of SIMS (former Middle School) was proposed by staff. This, unfortunately generated a storm of angry feedback by parents whose children use SIMS for recreation program. Noting that many who would have used that SIMS space are themselves parents, or former foster kids aged out of care, Kajin was disappointed by what he considers a preemptive, prejudicial reaction based on stigma, fear, and stereotypes. He expressed his appreciation of the Local Community Commissioners who restated their support of Chuan’s use of SIMS in a letter to the Driftwood and the Exchange.
• Seldom are bureaucratic delays lauded as good, but PARC’s delay getting a Temporary Use Permit for occupation of the Phoenix site for maintenance opened an opportunity. The Hearth will now use the portable until April 1 when PARC maintenance moves onto the site temporarily. (Watch for an opportunity to submit a Request for Interest, expected in February 2025, for use of the second floor of the home on the Phoenix school site by nonprofits needing space for the next 12-24 months.)

As a pilot project, Chuan volunteers are doing everything possible to make sure it is a success. What could go wrong? Some of the concerns to be addressed are:

• Some who will come who are unhoused. As overnight stays are not allowed, the Chuan Society has been coordinating a wider winter response plan with other groups and agencies to address this shortfall. Community Services will be offering overnight beds during extra weather conditions through their Emergency Weather Response program at hours which dovetail with the opening and closing hours of The Hearth. As well, the Chuan Society volunteers are workshopping immediate, low-cost solutions with the Social Justice Committee as well as other groups.
• Others will come who are struggling with mental health challenges, needing extra support. And, addiction issues are a reality for too many on Salt Spring. The Chuan Society volunteers have reached out to peer support and mental health workers to drop-in regularly or when needed. They also collaborate with members of Salt Spring Safely (https://www.facebook.com/groups/saltspringsafely/) to provide harm reduction supplies and assist with referrals to help and services.
• A lot of our community members have dogs who are essential to their mental health. The Chuan Society recognizes that creating a safe space for both dogs and people is necessary. Some members have recently received BC Service Dog certification (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/human-rights/guide-and-service-dog) for their companions through volunteer support (thank you, Alida!) with hopes to further this process. What about a Dog Whisperer so that dogs will get along as will their owners?
• Although a drug- and alcohol-free site, what happens when one wants to drink and use? The Hearth is intended as an intergenerational, family-friendly space, which does a lot to deter consumption. The Chuan Society will be applying the same approaches of encouraging mutual care and responsibility around the question of consumption on premises as they have at the Anglican Parish for Gabriel’s Kitchen. 

As all will be welcome, volunteers are prepared to address issues with wisdom, care, and gentleness. 

Volunteers know that this pilot MUST work. Kajin expressed that shared sense of urgency: We have lost too many friends from overdoses and other tragedies. Why do we perpetuate a needlessly polarized system that supports such disproportionate wealth and poverty on Salt Spring. “Why,” he asked, “are we so bad at sharing?”

A pretty amazing opportunity to do better as a community, participants lauded the visionary volunteers committed to making The Hearth an amazing community success. Want to do more? 

• Visit The Hearth to share a snack and connect with community at the portable at the former Phoenix School site, 163 Drake Road. Open every day, 9am-8pm, to confirm hours, please visit their Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/groups/thehearth/).
• Volunteer by contacting Kajin at kajin.goh@gmail.com; and
• Donate by contacting Kajin, sending an e-transfer to chuansociety@gmail.com (please specify ‘Hearth’ in the memo, and be sure to use ‘warm’ as the password), or bring your donations to ASK Salt Spring this Friday, December 13, 11-1. Designate your donation for The Hearth. Every penny you give will go to this amazing community project. 

As our time together was over for this week, we expressed our heartfelt appreciation for the tenacity, handwork, vision, unflagging optimism, energy, and resilience of the Chuan Society, Kajin, teams of volunteers, and most importantly, our community. (Thank-you, Kajin and the Chuan team!) 

Just in case you are interested. . . .This report has been written by Gayle Baker, founder of ASK Salt Spring, currently also a Salt Spring Local Community Commissioner. This report has also been edited by this week’s special guest, Kajin and his team.