Volly's Values

Recognizing the importance of education, we began offering Historic Chinatown Tours, and have proudly guided over 1,000 participants through the neighbourhood. By educating others on Chinatown’s rich history, including discrimination and other challenges, we hope to inspire a more inclusive future.

The volunteer portal was created to help Canadians easily find volunteer opportunities. Since inception, we have helped over 4000 Canadians find volunteer work and build community. Project was executed with volunteer software developers.

Tigerstedt and Friends is a pop-up-turned-storefront. Any revenue generated above costs was redistributed to the community. Using the co-op methodology we rented out space to individual female and BIPOC makers that typically wouldn't have the same access to a retail storefront.

In 3 days we raised $15,000.00 and planned, piloted, and executed Calgary's first outdoor fridge and pantry combo in order to solve food scarcity during the pandemic. Since we "opened" we have had 2500 visitors to the fridge and over 1000 donors. We created a start up guide for individuals who wanted to start their own community fridges and have helped grow fridges in 8 municipalities.

After creating a proposal, we then executed a full renovation of an abandoned building in downtown Calgary to create the first "Pay What You Want" thrift store in Canada. This 6000 sq ft space redirects over 100,000 pounds of clothing from the landfills into the hands of folks who need them. We predominantly serve low income seniors, immigrant families, and youth.

Built over 6 weeks by volunteers, we launched a website with the goal of demystifying questions for caregivers when you suddenly become one. The site includes a financial payroll calculator as well as information on financial literacy and resources for caregivers. This website won People's Choice at the 2022 Health Hack in Calgary Alberta!

In January 2023, we opened the fundraiser side of Good Neighbour. Funds raised are used to purchase items that aren’t typically donated, but are still needed by customers. These items, such as toiletries, sandwiches, new socks and underwear, are all moderately priced at $5 - $10. To date, we have raised over $200,000 for the community.

In a contract with the City of Calgary, our team was tasked with revitalizing a vacant firehall courtyard. Our focus was creating an event space with accessible programming regardless of the participants ability to pay. We hosted over 20 events bringing in thousands of Calgarians to the downtown core at a time when it is typically vacant.

We opened Calgary’s first non-profit community acupuncture clinic, led by Dr. Alex Judd. The idea for this space is to offer community care in a shared setting where the price per visit would be lower than market prices. This allows people to get the adequate number of treatments they need to heal their bodies and their minds.

Moonlight Books and Gifts is a shop inside of historic Chinatowns’ Dragon City Mall. The goal was to bring new life and energy into an aging commercial space. We were able to coordinate 100 small businesses owned by youth between the ages of 16-25 to have a store front experience. We also curated a book selection that highlight stories from asian diaspora and Chinese Canadian history.