Family

What does your family name mean?

Depending on your lineage, family names come from many different sources. Medieval Europeans, for instance, adopted surnames based on professions, influencing surnames you’ll hear today like Smith, Skinner, Fletcher, or Baker.

You’ll also see last names based on place of origin – that’s where you see some French names with “de” or Polish names with “ski” at the end, for instance.

In other cases, last names are based on a father’s first name. Johnson is, quite literally, John’s son.

The list of influences goes on and on. For those wondering, Blackmore would be one of those ‘place inspired’ last names drawing on a family which must have been based near a dark marsh somewhere in England. And for those wondering: despite my musical background, I’m not closely related to Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore…that I’m aware of.

The idea of last names was believed to have been first invented four thousand years ago in China for census and records purposes – to make bureaucracy easier, I suppose. And our family names still have that use today. But they also provide a shared sense of legacy, identity, and belonging.

We serve many families through our different programs, and a key focus for us when doing that is to restore their hope and dignity so they can build towards independence once again.

A small example? When delivering our Student Food Boxes to Kingston families in need of additional support, we deliver to their home – rather than school. That way, the student’s peers don’t necessarily need to be aware of their classmate's situation, minimizing the risk of bullying or awkwardness. We’re thankful for the many donors and volunteers, including our Kingston Rotary clubs and the Kinsmen Club of Kingston, who help make that program a reality.

Want to learn more about how to join our family? If you’re not already volunteering, visit lionhearts.ca/volunteer. We’d love to connect.

Travis Blackmore
Founder and CEO, Lionhearts Inc.

Kingston

Hope, Unlocked

Our Unlock Hope summer fundraising campaign has reached its goal – thank you to all who donated! Thanks to matching gifts from our local Rotary Clubs and the Kinsmen Club of Kingston, we’ve raised over $90,000 to support programs like the Student Food Box, Community Nutrition meal program, and Fresh Food Market Pop Ups. Stay tuned for updates as we put these much needed, generous donations to work for our community!

Kingstonians, Hydrated

Lionhearts is partnering with the City of Kingston to help keep our vulnerable neighbours safe during the current weather conditions."Our mission at Lionhearts is to eradicate hunger and homelessness – and you can add thirst to that list too," said Travis Blackmore, Founder and CEO. "In this heat wave, we’re distributing over 11,000 single-use water bottles to be given to agencies and shared with those who have inadequate shelter from these hot, dry conditions. The bulk of these bottles will be distributed the City as part of a 30-day distribution program they recently launched, while we will redistribute the remainder to our partners directly."

Ottawa

Serving Up Hope

We're thankful to our friends at Ottawa Tourism for this soup-er opportunity to serve! Our crews packed 400 bags of dry soup mix for the Ottawa Tourism booth at the Canadian Meetings and Events Expo in Toronto on August 13. Attendees of the conference had the opportunity to write a 'Message of Hope' on a label and apply it to the soup. After the event, the soup bags were returned to Ottawa to be distributed to our partner agencies.

Healing Hands

The fine folks at CHEO save lives every day - and now they're helping us eliminate hunger and restore hope and dignity! With assistance from our friends at La Tablée des Chefs, we're redistributing excess food from CHEO across the Ottawa area. Thank you to the Crafted by CHEO team for your support!

London

Happy Anniversary!

August marks one year since we began pickups in the London area. In that time, with the help of our friends at Gateway Church, we’ve redistributed well over $400,000 worth of food and household goods with more on the way. We continue to fundraise for our first warehouse and the other key resources we need on the ground in London in order to launch. If you’re able to support, please visit lionhearts.ca/donate.

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August 2025 Newsletter