Make your Giving Tuesday donations go even further! With the help of CanadaHelps, today’s donations will be topped up by an extra 1%!

Donate today and help make a difference! See terms here.

This Giving Tuesday, we are so grateful to champions like Cst. Robin Easey for their support of their First Responder family—and to OFRF donors for your understanding and aid in creating proactive programs and trauma support systems for Ottawa First Responders.

Your donations allow OFRF volunteers to distribute funds to Ottawa’s service personnel in need of additional or ongoing mental health and trauma support, for themselves and for their families.

Brittany Parr
Ottawa Paramedic Service
OFRF Volunteer

The Ottawa First Responder Foundation allows me to give back and serve my peers who are continuously showing up for their community regardless of their personal lives and sometimes at great risk to themselves - mentally and physically.

Being a part of an organization that cares about the people who care for us, encourages mental help initiatives and strives to support their first responders is a privilege; When I can help my peers, I feel rewarded personally, but I also create another support line for them should they need one outside their organizational peer support network.

Brent MacIntyre
Ottawa Police Service
ORFR Volunteer

I am a 25-year member of the Ottawa Police Service. I feel that volunteering with the Ottawa First Responders Foundation is hopefully going to be something that I can always point to as a legacy I left behind from my career. I worked for 5 years in the OPS Member Wellness section, coordinating peer support with members who were struggling with both life crisis and critical incident responses. There were times during my work that I could identify the gaps that existed and looked around for an outside agency that could meet the demand. There was no such agency specifically geared to Public Safety personnel or their families.

One thing I know is that cops will seldom access community resources geared to the public. The stigma around mental illness exists within the Public Safety world and as such the basic response has to be a cultural shift in the responses. While OFRF will never be the one stop shop that solves all issues with local area Public Safety personnel, it is a concrete step to support members who support the community every day. I am extremely proud to wear the uniform, to give to my community, and to support my colleagues who work tirelessly everyday for the citizens of Ottawa.