From the day in 1969 when a former Warkworth Institute inmate pitched his idea of establishing a community agency to help ex-offenders, the Christian Resource Centre was an incubator nurturing Operation Springboard’s growth. By 1973, however, Springboard was experiencing growing pains.
With the CRC’s encouragement, the fledgling agency took the necessary steps to operate independently. A renowned graphic designer, two sales reps, a printing company executive, a CBC television producer, a used car salesman, and an advertising advocate backed the next big step in the organization’s growth: incorporation.
As early as 1971, an attempt was made to sever ties with the CRC, but Operation Springboard had yet to establish its footing. Three years later, Springboard had grown in scope. With 12 employees and a budget approaching $70,000, the staff’s strategic planning and confidence in envisioning organizational restructuring were evident. The time was ripe to seek independence.
The funding landscape was changing. The federal government would soon terminate Local Initiative Program grants, the agency’s primary funding source. The CRC hinted internal policy changes meant they would no longer prop up Operation Springboard. With a deadline of June 1974 looming, the clock was ticking.
The first step in navigating the partition was to create an advisory board. Seven individuals from the community, some of whom were already volunteering with the agency, were enlisted. Of the original seven, six would become founding board members.
Joseph MacMartin, a 56-year-old father of five and senior sales representative employed by Honeywell International, was an original signatory to the Letters Patent. Growing up in Don Mills in the early 1970s, Lisa MacMartin, his daughter, has vague memories of her father discussing his involvement with Operation Springboard. “I didn’t know what [Springboard] was, but he’d always be saying, ‘I’ve got a Springboard whatever-’”
Lisa recalls an amusing incident her father shared after visiting a probationer at his apartment. When he arrived, the individual was tuning up his motorcycle inside the living room. “While he was there, the guy started the bike, filling the apartment with exhaust fumes.”
Original board members also included Mark Maskery, sales manager of Birchmount Motors. Maskery’s younger brother had several run-ins with the law. Margo Lane abandoned work as a fashion model to focus on a career in television journalism. She was behind the CBC’s controversial current affairs show, All About Women, which was cancelled by the broadcaster before the first episode aired in 1971. Lane was a proponent of prison reform for female inmates.
British-born Sam Smart flew Spitfires during the Second World War. Emigrating to Canada and settling in Toronto’s Don Vale neighbourhood in 1954, the graphic designer founded the trade association Typographic Designers of Canada two years later. He established Leslie Smart & Associates on Parliament Street, adjacent to his home, within walking distance of Operation Springboard offices. Smart approached industry peer John Macdonald, president of printing house Macdonald-Downie Ltd and convinced him to sit on the advisory board. Evelyn Crandall, an executive at the Canadian Advertising Board, was an acquaintance of Springboard co-director Doug MacLaurin.
Banking arrangements were finalized. Signing officers were appointed. Now that they were striking out on their own, Operation Springboard was required to negotiate ownership of the all-important bus. The recently purchased vehicle’s original cost was $4,223. A little over half was cleared off the books through the sale of the previous bus, a grant from Canada Packers, and a donation from inmates at Millhaven Institution. The Christian Resource Centre contributed an additional $1,773.
The solution was to transfer ownership and insurance policies into Springboard’s name and assume the remaining $550 debt owed on the vehicle.
Operation Springboard was incorporated on April 22, 1974, with five weeks to spare. The Christian Resource Centre promptly evicted Springboard from 297 Carlton Street, after which, Neighbourhood Legal Services briefly provided them with office space at their Seaton Street location.
Eventually, the agency found a home at All Saints Church Community Centre on Dundas Street East. They’d remain here for a spell, renting office space in the parish hall annex. The low-cost rent of $100 a month included a van parking space at the back of the church. Staff dwindled to five full-time employees. Volunteers continued to be essential. The busing service remained as vital as ever, reflected in the need for a second van to meet the desire of family members wishing to visit incarcerated loved ones serving time in nine federal and three provincial penal institutions.
In addition to the transportation service, staff continued providing counselling and financial assistance referrals. In the early 1980s, Springboard helped organize the Exceptional People’s Olympic Games, an annual competition held at Collins Bay Penitentiary for athletes with developmental disabilities, facilitated by inmates.
The mid-1980s witnessed a severe housing crisis in Toronto, which affected Operation Springboard. In response to this crisis, All Saints Church Community Centre regretfully asked its tenant to vacate the location so that it could convert its office space into much-needed housing.
Next, the agency relocated to a storefront office on Eglinton Avenue West near Dufferin. Staff shrank to include a family liaison worker and Louise Dueck as Executive Director. A pair of vans driven by two full-time and four part-time staff continued to shuttle family members to eleven federal and provincial penal institutions. Funding was unstable, even with federal, provincial, and municipal government monies, as well as donations from local Anglican and United Church congregations, and corporate and individual sponsors.
Around 1986, they began discussing partnering with David Arbuckle at the John Howard Society of Metropolitan Toronto. Operation Springboard had worked in various capacities with the agency since its inception. In the autumn of that year, the agencies partnered.
After separation from the Christian Resource Centre, Operation Springboard came a long way in roughly a decade since its incorporation. Along the way, individuals like founding signatory Joseph MacMartin played a role in promoting the agency’s growth. His daughter Lisa proudly recalls, “My dad went on many bus trips to visit the facilities. He was a doer. He believed in the common good. This was a man who donated blood regularly until he got too old to do it.”
Joseph MacMartin died in 1997, just before his eightieth birthday. Operation Springboard services were about to expand significantly, and additional doers would be required to enter the breach in the coming years.