Episode 88 of The New Leaf Project is here!

In this week's conversation, Alicia Wilson, spiritual entrepreneur and pastor tells her story about her new non-profit “In My Back Yard” which focuses on community and relationship building through developing affordable housing.

Alicia gives important advice to those who desire to start something new, sharing her personal creative process in "noticing the gaps". She unpacks her latest project IMBY Homes and describes her first successful non-profit “Restoration Project” which continues to create opportunities for meaningful employment for those with disabilities. Alicia encourages each of us to take steps to deeply impact the needs of our society in the name of Jesus. 

Rather than closing off our backyards, what would happen if we open them up? What could happen if Jesus-followers here in Canada started engaging in creative thinking about ways we can respond to the current housing crisis? Could we find intentional ways to partner together as the body of Christ to see something beautiful happen right in our own backyard? 

This episode is refreshing and inspiring for Jesus-followers to reflect on their own contexts and imagine the ways they can take the next steps to start something new! 

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Alicia Wilson is the founder and director of Restoration Project in Hamilton, ON. Restoration Project works to illuminate the profound value and humanness of individuals that the world can dismiss as inferior or as a liability by teaching woodworking skills to adults with developmental disabilities. She also recently helped launch In My Backyard, an organization tackling the housing crisis in southern Ontario. Alicia loves living in community: her “household” is made of 16 people who eat, pray, and live together in Hamilton, ON.