Guiding Principles
Sustainable Development
Our goal is to support projects that will help bring improvement and transformation that would be sustainable and have long-lasting benefits to a community.
Community Initiative
We seek initiatives to come from national and community leaders so that there is increased ownership and community participation in each project.
Value of a Child
The welfare of children remains a primary motivation for our services. We believe that the life and potential of a child born in one place are just as valuable as that in another, no matter what the financial circumstances might be.
Green Stewardship
The needs that exist in much of the world and the amount of waste our society generates needs to come to a sustainable common ground. We seek to harness the surplus from our society to share from our abundance to serve our fellow man.
Core Values
Emmanuel Foundation was historically established as a society that was shaped and motivated by being "Christ-followers". What does that mean to us?
It means that for us, faith in God specifically finds meaning through the life and person of Jesus Christ. God has revealed His [and our] nature and design through Jesus and informs us through His life much of our mission and purpose. This affects and shapes our values as a foundation in a number of ways:
Demonstrated Love
God revealed that He cares about us to the extent that through Jesus, He got involved in our lives to help. Thus, we use the term ‘Emmanuel’, which means ‘God with us’. This tangible expression of love takes us beyond a nebulous ‘we care about the children of the world’ to actually getting involved and demonstrating it in a concrete manner.
Respect
Jesus gave us an example of how to serve the poor and marginalized in a way that respected them and their culture. Therefore we want to communicate a message of respect – from the way we treat others to the quality of items we ship to how we implement community development projects. We want to be respectful of individuals, groups, and cultures in everything we do.
Generosity
A core value of the life Jesus taught and demonstrated was that life was lived most fully when it gave freely. We and our children have received much, so out of gratefulness, we want to be generous to others as well.
Serving
The posture of our society is informed by the posture of Jesus as a servant, “I did not come to be served but to serve...” This shapes our attitude as we go into communities. We do not want to serve our agendas or ourselves but to serve others.
Relationships
People are of the highest value. As we bring the benefits of developmental play to children in need, we remember that more important than our projects and plans, we exist to help people. Our relationships with each other and the communities we serve are influenced by the teaching and actions of Jesus in the way we treat others.
Our Team
Addi Johnson
Volunteer Coordinator
Deryk Kirchner
Operations Director and Project Manager
Caleb Knierim
Warehouse Assistant
Our Partners
The Emmanuel Foundation is supported by an amazing group of organizations and other charities.Together we can accomplish much more than we could apart.
The Sherwood Park Rotary club has been one of Emmanuel Foundation’s biggest supporters. EF’s Executive Director, Chairman of the Board, and many volunteers are part of the club, which has done many shipping projects and meal packaging initiatives.
Hope Mission is one of Emmanuel Foundation’s vital partners as they share warehouse space and resources as a friendly and loving neighbor. Hope Mission has been supporting Edmonton for 80 years, as one of Edmonton's most diverse and effective non-profits.
Government of Alberta
We thank the Culture and Community Spirit Program of the Government of Alberta for the grant we received in 2013.
Canada Helps
Canada Helps is an organization that helps charities fundraise, and has helped bring awareness to the Emmanuel Foundation.
Emmanuel Foundation works with Kids Around the World (KATW) to make pre-packaged dried meals to bring help to the malnourished and poor. The OneMeal brand is also supported by the M5MFoundation.
Sport Central supplies sporting goods for kids in need across Edmonton. They partner with Emmanuel Foundation by refurbishing and preparing bikes to send internationally. Hundreds of individuals now have a new lease on life through transportation because of Sport Central.
Hope City Church supports Emmanuel Foundation with its faithful clothing collection. Clothing is an essential item that Emmanuel Foundation has constant requests for, which we always want to provide; the help of Hope City makes this possible!
The ERA works with the Emmanuel Foundation to recycle and refurbish and electronics donated that are not in good working order. These electronics are often unable to be used by the Emmanuel Foundation, so through the ERA they can be used more effectively.
Board of Directors
Barry Novak Board Member
Dave Campbell Vice Chairman
Dennis Wald Treasurer
Kirk Grycan Board Member
Dennis Steinwand Board Member
Charlie Teeuwsen Chairman