2024/2025 Annual Impact Report - Ontario

After more than 20 years of hosting the popular Niska Noël Market, the event took an exciting step forward. On November 29, 2024, at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre, a vibrant new chapter unfolded—a fashion show celebrating the artistry of 13 Indigenous designers. Local Indigenous models brought each piece to life, wearing designs inspired by connections to land, lineage and legacy.

The show opened into Saturday’s Niska Noël Market, where guests had the chance to meet artisans, purchase runway pieces and explore a wide array of handcrafted beadwork, leatherwork and artwork. We are grateful for the enduring partnerships that made this celebration possible—between the MCC Niska Artisan program, the Timmins Museum, the Ojibway Cree Cultural Centre and Misiway Milopemahtesewin Community Health Centre.

Your generous support helps grow social enterprise initiatives like this one, while nurturing the community bonds and shared spirit that make them meaningful.

On January 18, 2025, more than 700 people gathered in New Hamburg to celebrate the grand opening of MCC’s first-ever stationary meat cannery. Behind this state-of-the-art facility is a story of faithful people each doing their part. For decades, MCC’s mobile meat canner crossed borders, overcoming red tape to can meat for hungry people. But rising costs, tighter regulations and a pandemic halted Canadian operations in 2019.

When plans began for a permanent facility in Ontario, excitement grew—and so did the challenges. At one point, the project was on the edge of collapse when a key piece of equipment—the pressure cookers, called retorts—were suddenly unavailable. That’s when Martin Rahn, a volunteer on the build committee, remembered he had four old retorts sitting behind his barn. Against all odds, they still worked! 

“This is not MCC’s cannery. This is God’s cannery,” says Jon Lebold, material resources program coordinator.

The facility is poised to can nearly 41,000 kgs of meat in its first year—meals that bring vital protein to displaced families in conflict zones and disaster areas.

At Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, peacebuilding isn’t just taught—it’s lived. Through the new Youth Leading Change partnership with MCC Ontario, select students in Grades 11 and 12 embark on a journey that transforms classroom learning into real-world impact.

After participating in five workshops led by MCC staff, students get the chance to apply their learning by volunteering with MCC’s local programs— tackling issues from poverty to Indigenous reconciliation and, more recently, climate action. "They felt like they couldn’t do anything," Rockway teacher David Penny recalls. That changed when MCC offered $800 in seed funding and a challenge: create a climate action for peace.

What followed was transformative. Students designed and planted a pollinator garden, launched a multi-year rewilding initiative and began cultivating a pear orchard—all on school grounds. “It was amazing to see them jump on board,” says Penny. “It’s not just impacting the environment, or Rockway, but also our surrounding community, too,” says Julia Abicht, a student at Rockway.

Launched as a pilot project in the Region of Waterloo, MCC Picks Up was designed to make donating to MCC thrift shops easier. In 2024 alone, MCC Picks Up collected over 3,500 bags and boxes of donated items. This service now includes furniture pick-ups, offering a convenient way for people to pass along bulky items that still have life in them. For a small service fee—offset by a charitable tax receipt—donors can turn couches, tables and dressers into affordable finds for local families and essential funds for MCC’s global work.

Last year alone, the six MCC Thrift shops in Ontario forwarded over $5 million to support MCC’s work—all made possible by generous donors and shoppers like you.

Total $24,722,042

Total $27,009,489