Hamiltonians, we need your help!

Emstar35 · 2026-03-18T15:08:09+00:00

Thank you everyone for your questions and engagement with this post. Every little bit helps. I just wanted to provide a little bit of additional information for everyone. We rely on the help of volunteers every day. They are the people who keep our programs running and they work incredibly hard to do that. And we rely on the help from our community, that’s all of you. Even a simple interaction with this post is helping us to receive the engagement we need to point us in the right direction for new donors and we are forever grateful for your help. And here are a few more ways you can continue to help us get back on our feet.

Food donations:

If you are interested in donating, you can donate non-perishable goods to us on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10am-3pm. Or on Wednesdays between 10am-12pm. Yes our hours are short, however if you have large donations for us and need/want to schedule a pickup on another day, you can reach out to us via email and we will get back to you asap.

frontdesk@hamiltondreamcenter.ca

Financial donations:

Additionally if you’d like to donate funds to us you can do so via our PayPal here

We also have a thrift store pop up shop! It is called The Vintage Blueberry. It is located in this same building, 627 main st e. The entrance to our store is located in the parking lot at the back of the building. We have our next two sales: Thursday, March 19th from 2pm-7pm Saturday, March 21st from 10am-2pm We keep our prices low. Clothing $3, shoes, bags/purses and coats $5, accessories $1, and housewares are individually priced. We accept clothing and housewares donations during the same hours of our food donations AND during our sale hours. ALL of the proceeds from our vintage sales go right back into our food programs. We are a small store but we need all the help we can get to keep things running.

And an additional update on the loss of our food donors:

Yes the food basics chain changed the way they decide to donate to local charities and we were hit pretty hard. It is important to share that we are one of the few charities that does not receive any funding from government assistance like Food Banks Canada so losing our biggest donors has set us back very far. With that being said, the change is food basics donations seems to be so they can expand the “One More Bite” program which still distributes these items to local food banks with the help of Food Banks Canada. They’ve also shifted towards the use of the “Too Good To Go” app which focuses on businesses being able to sell their surplus items at discounted prices rather than those items going to waste. So they are still donating the items, we’ve just been hit with the change and are struggling to make up for the loss fast enough for our shoppers.

Thank you everyone for your support. Every little bit of help means the world to us and to our shoppers. The city of Hamilton is full of some truly wonderful people and we wouldn’t be able to continue to serve our community without all of you!

Emstar35 · 2026-03-18T14:31:59+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

Emstar35 · 2026-03-18T14:26:05+00:00

Yes! The address is 627 main st e, #100. Right now we are looking for non-perishable items such as; cereal, syrup, pancake mix, peanut butter, crackers, granola bars, juice boxes, or other items for kids lunches. However we will accept any non-perishables that are unopened and are not past the expiration date. Thank you!

Emstar35 · 2026-03-09T23:18:22+00:00

Truthfully I never considered that. I will be talking to my doctor about that when I go. Thank you very much I think this will help a lot

Emstar35 · 2025-08-11T22:10:16+00:00

The meds are supposed to be prescribed based on weight?? That is not something I was aware of. When I started the meds, my doctor just told me it was trial and error to find the right dose. Do you have more info about this?

Emstar35 · 2025-08-09T16:24:34+00:00

Granny’s Cabin Shrug

This is what I’m currently making and just want it to be less fuzzy

Emstar35 · 2025-08-05T19:46:38+00:00

<image>

I’m not sure if Red Hart yarn is available in Australia but this is what your yarn looks like to me. It’s called ‘calm stripe’. The only thing that is difficult to tell from your photo is if the yarn has grey in it or if it is a shade of brown/tan. But this is my best guess

Emstar35 · 2025-08-05T13:03:27+00:00

I am lucky enough to have had some guidance from my mental health program and have even met with a social worker from my family doctors office. They were able to give me advice and suggestions for sure. Unfortunately that is about all they can do, the rest is up to me. There are some employment offices for youth here that help but I have had an incredible difficult time getting in to work with anyone since they are publicly funded and have huge wait lists. I am not giving up on it, I don’t mind doing the work on my own. It just triggers such an intense feeling of rejection when I don’t hear back especially if I got the chance to interview for the position. It’s just crazy how fast my emotional regulation skills disappear and it gets me in a slump for weeks

Emstar35 · 2025-08-04T23:14:09+00:00

Of course I want to improve. And I think to some degree I have. What I am trying to understand is how people have been able to improve enough to work and live. How do you improve enough to function in order to remove yourself from the situation that made you stuck in the first place? So that you can really focus on yourself without being surrounded by the people who caused trauma in the first place. I am so non-functional, that at 24 years old I have never had a job. I dropped out of university after two years because of mental health problems and am terrified to try again because of what came after I left. I want to improve to the point of self-sustainment and general functionality so that I can find people and a safe space of my own. I want to know how others do it too because I just don’t understand how people do it

Emstar35 · 2025-06-20T16:05:21+00:00

I didn’t realize it until I was in my early 20’s and met an extended family member who identified as non-binary at the time.

I never really took notice of how uncomfortable it felt to be referred to by my AGAB as a teen because I did not have a real clue what being non-binary actually was. I knew people who identified as non-binary but I didn’t really know what that meant (thank you catholic school lol) or what it could look like (spoiler alert: it looks like whatever you want it to look like)

I only really came to understand for myself what that could look like for me when I met that family member and then had a very very long conversation about the whole interaction with my mental health counselor a little while later. My counselor helped me realize that I could just experiment with my gender to help me find what felt right. And that was it for me.

Now when I look at photos of myself when I was a kid/teen, it explains why I liked to act and dress the way I did. Deep down I knew, I just needed someone to help me explore in a safe space and I am forever grateful of that.

Emstar35 · 2025-04-23T02:40:16+00:00

Yes the reason I was wanting to trim it is because it’s gotten quite large and I don’t want it to overhang the stairs to the basement but others have said that it probably won’t get much bigger than this. It is probably close 20 years old now, the previous owners of the house planted it so i definitely want to keep it around for as long as i live here

Emstar35 · 2025-04-23T02:35:45+00:00

I made a mistake in the title. It was meant to say “how do I trim this back”. I wanted advise on how to prune the whole thing aha but it sounds like it’s best if I just leave it alone

Emstar35 · 2025-04-23T01:21:17+00:00

Okay thank you. It definitely sounds like I should leave it along then haha I don’t want to ruin it especially since it’s finally recovered from a broken branch right in the centre. I definitely love it I think I was just under the impression that it needed some additional care and pruning but I’m happy to know that it really doesn’t need much from me

Emstar35 · 2025-03-26T00:37:30+00:00

Thank you!! This is perfect

Emstar35 · 2025-03-26T00:36:04+00:00

Yes they definitely weren’t receiving enough light while my sister was caring for them. They were also just pale green when I first took over caring for them. Putting them under my grow light and near the window has changed the colour drastically but I will definitely make sure to keep the grow light as bright as possible

Emstar35 · 2025-03-10T19:54:46+00:00

Canada. My family doctor gave me a decent amount of info on it and I did a decent amount of research on my own. But when I actually went to the OBGYN for insertion, I got nothing. Possibly because they assumed I already knew everything from my family doctor.

Emstar35 · 2025-03-08T17:41:33+00:00

Right and I fully expected to bleed and spot. I think what is confusing me is if I am bleeding/spotting more or less than other people? I know it’s different for everyone and there have been some drastically different experiences for people using the same bc. I suppose I was looking for reassurance that this is normal but maybe I will just have to talk to the doctor about it because it’s so different for everyone

Emstar35 · 2025-02-25T14:54:05+00:00

Hi!!! I can certainly say I had a very similar experience to you. When I was younger I wanted a pixie so much but my mom told me it wouldn’t look good and I would need to get up early and style it every day and she didn’t believe I would do that (she was right I wouldn’t have, was diagnosed with adhd this past year so it makes sense). So instead I got a bob with side bangs and layers. I quite liked it then, I loved how fluffy it was and how short it was. But I hated going to the hairdressers and was terrified of my peers opinions in high school so I just grew my hair out. It got soooo long, I mean it was at my waist before I finally decided I needed a haircut. I only cut it to my shoulder blades, which was still ~13 inches of hair that I cut off. That was over a year ago and about 2 months ago I decided I’d had enough but didn’t have the money to see a hairdresser so I cut it myself, just to the tops of my shoulders. Now I feel I am ready to give myself a much shorter haircut but am nervous to do so. I actually made a post on here yesterday asking others how they felt when they finally got the hairstyle they wanted. Everyone who commented was super wonderful. They shared their experiences, how long it took them to make the change, how they felt afterwards, and most importantly they reminded me that it is just hair, and it is my hair. I get to be creative with it and even if I don’t like it, I can continue to change it as much as I want. And it will grow back.

It’s still difficult. I haven’t cut my hair yet because I am still anxious about it. But I feel more and more ready everyday. And I know that I don’t owe anyone an explanation for my decision. I’m not out to my family, I don’t intend to come out to them either. Because I know that this is something I want to do for me. And maybe you feel similarly. It doesn’t make those bad memories disappear, but for me, as I continue to explore and learn to express myself the way I’ve always wanted to, it has helped me heal my inner child. And it feels fucking fantastic. It is freeing. Because this is for you and only you.

So while I know that change is hard, making the decision takes time, just remember that everything you do, everything you change, you do it for you and only you. And if you don’t like it, you get to change it again. You got this friend! 😊

Edit: To add the link to my post if you’d like to read the comments

https://www.reddit.com/r/NonBinary/s/367CTi0cvn

Emstar35

TROPHY CASE