Joanna Cockerline (left) with UBCO Nursing students at the Heart and Sole event on July 15, 2025
JustUs Street Outreach, co-founded and led by Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and Faculty of Management Lecturer Joanna Cockerline and Tasha S., has partnered with the UBCO School of Nursing on a Partnership Recognition and Exploration Grant. The registered non-profit organization and students from the Nursing Capstone course, alongside School of Nursing Associate Professor Sheila Epp, worked together to create a community night for women on the streets, featuring foot care, pizza, and community building.
The Hearts and Soles event, held July 15 at a local community centre, was a huge success and welcomed over 20 participants living on the street. The team of nursing students collected donations and provided hands-on, compassionate, and interactive foot care and foot care instruction for those who attended—while giving pedicures.
Cockerline and Tasha founded JustUs Street Outreach in 2024 in response to the situations faced by those living on the street in Kelowna, especially after the dissolution of two other community outreach programs that left many people living unhoused feeling disconnected and hopeless. JustUs Street Outreach is starting small and independent, ready to step up immediately to fill that gap. Cockerline and Tasha, who provided street outreach together for five years prior, are excited about this grassroots initiative, which provides direct, non-judgemental, practical, and compassionate outreach to those on the street who need it most.
“JustUs Street Outreach changes lives,” says Tasha, who brings lived experience and firsthand knowledge of many of the struggles faced by those she cares so deeply about, and is now a Business Administration graduate with a background as an outreach volunteer, Narcan Team Lead, Volunteer Coordinator, and advocate. “We can’t do the work for them, but we can walk alongside them and support them in the change they’re making in their lives.”
“Everyone deserves to live with compassion and connection, and we want to be there for those who need it most,” adds Joanna, who teaches English, Communications, and Creative Writing at UBCO, and whose novel, Still (published by the Porcupine’s Quill, September 2025) provides a compassionate lens into the unhoused and street-level sex work communities of Kelowna, BC—and is ultimately a story of friendship, community, resiliency, healing, and hope.
“We are dedicated to being there for some of the most vulnerable in our community,” Tasha says. “We are very glad to be back out there and do all we can.”
JustUs Street Outreach and the UBCO School of Nursing are continuing to partner together in the future, and look forward to applying for a UBC Community University Engagement (CUES) Grant autumn of 2025 so that they can continue to make a difference to students’ learning, future nurses, and the community.
Sheila Epp (centre) with UBCO Nursing students at the Heart and Sole event on July 15, 2025
Heart and Sole event, July 15, 2025
Heart and Sole event, July 15, 2025