Genesis House is looking forward to bringing back the Peace Begins at Home hockey games in November, thanks to a considerable increase in donations this year. 

"Often for November, our awareness month, we'll do those 'Peace Begins at Home' hockey games and this last year we weren't able to do those. We just did not have enough resources to do it," says Executive Director, Angela Braun.

The hockey games involve teams wearing white jerseys that say "Peace Begins at Home," while volunteers hand out white ribbons to the crowd. The white ribbon campaign symbolizes men and boys advocating for an end to violence against women.

Braun says this is a step towards finding programs for men, which can impact the whole family unit, not only women and children. "Currently there's just not a lot of support or resources for them, and what we're thinking and looking at what's happening across the country, is if there was something like that available, would men voluntarily access that type of programming?"

She adds, "there is a pilot program happening out of Winnipeg that is showing fantastic results. It's showing that men that participate in the program are re-offending at a much lower rate than men that have had no intervention."

Using hockey games to bring more awareness to this programming is a unique opportunity that no other shelters in Manitoba participate in, which allows Genesis House to expand the conversation into a new environment. 

A number of local teams have taken part in the games. Braun says, "the female Pembina Valley Hawks have worn our jerseys, the male Hawks have worn them in the past, the Flyers league has worn them, the Royals . . . the high schools have worn them."

"We find that especially with the high school games, it's no problem at all if people want to wear those white ribbons," and the students are enthusiastic about participating by wearing the jerseys, Braun adds.

Braun says Genesis House is excited to step further into the community come November. "With our resources getting tighter it's hard to be where we should be in all the different communities that we should be present, so the community support makes a world of a difference."