Covenant House Vancouver

Thanks to our good friend Elaine Lui, we were in the Spotlight at the Smut Soiree in Toronto Monday night. Click here for all the details.

Thank you Elaine for your on-going, enthusiastic and generous support of our young people. We are thrilled with Cory Monteith’s video and his $5,000 matching donor challenge.

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Spectra Energy Employees volunteered in our Gift in Kind program as part of their Helping Hands in Action Initiative. They helped to sort and distribute the many donations we are fortunate to receive from the community. The group worked incredibly hard and sorted through 5,000 lbs of donations. Way to go!

A huge thanks to Cindy Willers and her awesome group for their ongoing support of Covenant House Vancouver throughout the year.

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On May 29th which is TELUS Day of Service an enthusiastic group of volunteers from TELUS helped transform our Pender rooftop into an oasis for our young people. They cleaned out flower beds and transported soil from the parkade. The rooftop is used by youth and staff alike to have a break, get some fresh air or read a book. Having a nice, clean space will allow everyone to enjoy the rooftop garden even more.

The results were amazing and you can see it for yourself from the photos below.

A big thanks to TELUS for their ongoing support of our young people and Covenant House Vancouver.

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Yesterday we held our 2nd annual youth versus staff floor hockey game at the Roundhouse Recreation Centre. Many were on hand to cheer for both the youth and the staff alike. There was participation from the whole agency including youth from CSS and staff from Case Management. The final score is being debated but it has been agreed that the youth won. Way to go Youth!

It was a really great game to watch and I was surprised at the intensity and determination to win by both the youth and the staff. It was wonderful for both teams to have a chance to participate in a fun and healthy activity together, and anytime our youth have the chance to see adults having fun without drugs or alcohol is a positive learning experience for them.

Great fun was had by all, even poor Sister Nancy who took a ball to the side of the head as a spectator (don't worry, she's okay).

Here are some pictures from the game.


John the Program Director is playing hard



CSS Manager Kevin is having fun


Enjoy and have a healthy, happy weekend.

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Christine has been with Covenant House Vancouver for the past 10 years and her contributions will be felt for years to come. Christine developed our planned giving program and our cornerstone group. She has been dedicated to not only our youth and donors but has also mentored and supported new staff. Christine's kind heart and hard work will be missed.

The staff, volunteers and youth wish you all the best of luck on your new adventures.

Happy Retirement Christine!

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The "Health of the Homeless" summit was held at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue on Tuesday. It featured speakers such as Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and other experts from the housing, health, academic, government, non-profit, homeless advocacy and police sectors. The main purpose of the summit was to discuss ways to improve the health of those who are homeless in Vancouver.

The Province's Ethan Baron submitted the article "Compassion key to rebuilding homeless lives" in response to the summit. The Vancouver Sun also published an article and both are worth a read.

The Tyee's Monte Paulsen wrote a brilliant article about mental health and homelessness. It discusses how so many have suffered from trauma and illness before they were homeless. The article also asks the question what comes first: mental health concerns or homelessness.

What are your feelings regarding health and homelessness? Do you have any ideas? Solutions? Complaints?

Please feel free to share your thoughts with us.

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Marty, one of our Development Officers, wrote to thank a donor from whom we received a donation.  He got this reply (posted with the donor's permission):

Hi Marty,

Thanks so much for your note. It was both my 5 year old son Max and 3 year old daughter Kelty and I was so proud of them.

The story is such... My kids came to see me at my office and they were chatting with the building's cleaning lady, a lovely woman who has had a terribly hard life. Out of the goodness of her blessed heart, she ran after them as we were leaving and put $20 in each of their hands.

My children are so fortunate and need no excesses. Mira, the woman, needs every penny she earns yet she gave away $40 which I know is so much for her to give my children who she knows have everything they need. I explained the story to my children, who without hesitation suggested we give it to someone who needs it. We drove straight to you and it meant so much to us all.

My son goes to St. Anthony's and we are all proud to continue to support your cause and it made me so proud to see my children do that yesterday. I thank the staff too who were so gracious and explained to Max and Kelty how they were helping.

God bless you and your team!

Joanne

 

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The trafficking of people is a big concern both around the world and in Canada. Human trafficking is thought of as modern day slavery - people being forced or tricked to work as prostitutes, strippers or in sweatshops against their will. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has an excellent definition explaining human trafficking.

Covenant House Vancouver has a strong stand against human trafficking and we have spoken out about this topic before.

Recently, the Toronto Sun published an article about Canada's lack of a national strategy for human trafficking citing the recent 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report put out by the State Department in the United States.  The Report calls Canada out - saying that Canada has not moved forward on its national strategy, noting that The House of Commons voted 3 years ago to create a national strategy around human trafficking but still nothing has been created.

I hope that you take the time to learn more about human trafficking and if it is an important issue to you please speak out against it.

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Thrilled to report that our blog took home the Silver at the CPRS National Awards of Excellence ceremony last night in Regina. 

Kristy and I are the primary contributors to the blog and we LOVE blogging and love it even more when you comment on our posts, so thanks for reading us and for giving us your feedback - please keep it up!

I would like to thank Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo from Capulet Communications who helped us with our social media plan and also Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, our blog designers. 

Also, sincere thanks go to the youth and staff here at Covenant House who have contributed to the blog and whose support of it made this award possible.

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 A while back, we got a call from Riverview hospital about a girl who had gone AWOL (missing).

We happened to know the youth and had seen her the day before without realizing she was already AWOL The Hospital called just to let us know so that if we did see her we could try to get her back to a safe place. She showed up that very day to women's drop in all happy to see us and of course it is hard to decide to make that call - to know that you are going to get an ambulance here to pick her up and bring her back to the hospital.

My team and I worked together and we got the police here and the police were amazing, the sweetest, kindest most understanding police officers. They allowed me to talk with the youth before bringing her downstairs. At first the youth was quite upset and she said she was fine and didn't need any help and asked to please not let her be locked up. The police allowed us to stand there and work through the whole situation until the youth came to a point where she calmed down and she appeared to be feeling a little bit better.

Then we had to wait for the paddy wagon because the ambulance cannot transport somebody, even if it is a medical need, so it had to be the paddy wagon. We stood there and waited for the paddy wagon and while we continued processing the girl looked at me and said "You know what, it is for the best. I do need help". We talked about how much better she was doing and how much work she had obviously put in and she said "You know I am doing better and this is going to work for me".

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