When Peace Arch Community Services was founded over a quarter of a century ago, only a few thousand people sought its services and referral information. As family and social challenges intensified, so did the need for Peace Arch Community Services volunteers and professionals to help those in need overcome adversity and build a better life.
Today, Peace Arch Community Services answers 30,000 calls for help each year. Volunteers drive for seniors and answer calls for information. Caring professionals work with families in distress. The food bank, treatment facilities, group homes, and family and individual counselling services are among the many programs provided by Peace Arch Community Services.
Peace Arch Community Services is proud to have played a role in the efforts of this community to promote a better quality life for all, and to build a sense of community which encourages each of us to lend support to neighbours in need.
In part, this is what makes the peninsula a great place to live. We are very proud that Peace Arch Community Services is the first social service agency in British Columbia to have received international accreditation a significant recognition of the quality of the services Peace Arch Community Services provides.
Furthermore, as a result of our commitment to healthy communities and service excellence, the readers of the Surrey NOW newspaper have five times selected PACS as the "Best Community Service Organization" of the Semiahmoo Peninsula. PACS was also chosen to recieve the WR/SS Chamber of Commerce Excellence Award for a business with over 21 employees.
Please read our latest newsletter, published quarterly in the Peace Arch News, for up to date information about our programs. For more information, call us at (604)531-6226.
Did you know...
Peace Arch Community Services has been serving the communities of Surrey and White Rock for over a quarter of a century. Last year, we provided direct service to over 15,000 individuals, ?of whom live in Surrey.
Peace Arch Community Services was the first social service agency in British Columbia and the 13th in Canada to be accredited by the internationally recognized Council on Accreditation and we are the only one in British Columbia to be thrice accredited.
Our Help Line and Volunteer Services responded to over 22,000 requests for assistance and drove those in need to medical appointments, grocery shopped for those who are house bound, distributed Christmas hampers to needy families, provided meals at our annual Christmas dinner, and coordinated pro bono legal and tax clinics. We inform individuals not only of volunteer opportunities within the 14 different programs within PACS but within other organizations in the area as well.
Our Employment Resource Centre, located in Cloverdale, assisted almost 3,000 individuals find work, change careers or upgrade their skills.
Our Food Bank, the only one of our programs to have the geographic limitation of White Rock/South Surrey, assisted 2% of the population (1/3 of whom were children), with food, clothing, washer/dryer and shower facilities, a School Lunch and Preschool Snack program.
Our Counselling/Addictions and Employee Assistance Program had over 1,500 individual, group and family sessions. Our two DVDs on Crystal Meth “Death by Jib?and “Cold as Ice? have been seen by thousands of teens, parents and adults.
Our Infant Development Program, located in Newton and the largest in Canada, assisted almost 600 families with their babies at risk of developmental delays.
Our Child and Family Services Program provided over 4,200 hours of outreach and support to children, teens and their parents.
Our Specialized Adult Services Program, located in Newton, assisted an average of 125 adults with developmental delays a month to improve their life skills. Their “Events Unlimited Impostors Revue?musical impersonation show has performed to countless over the years.
Our group homes for at risk teens, located in Surrey, helped 78 youth with over 600 counselling sessions and activities to reunite them with their families. Our two group homes for adults with developmental delays, located in Surrey, continue to provide a nurturing and supportive environment.
Our almost 130 staff and 500 volunteers donated almost 23,000 hours of their time last year, to PACS?fourteen programs in nine different locations.
For four out of the past six years, Peace Arch Community Services has been voted “Best Community Service?agency by readers of the “Now?newspaper. In 2004, we received the “Business of the Year?award from the White Rock/South Surrey Chamber of Commerce and in 2006, the Surrey Board of Trade awarded us the “Business Excellence Award?in the Not for Profit category.