A recent Ontario Court of Appeal ruling allowing River City Vineyard Church in Sarnia to give shelter to the homeless is good news for four Chatham residents who have teamed up with New Beginning Ministries to open its doors to the homeless.
At their first fundraiser for New Beginning House, Bill Gardiner, Rachael Laidler, Josephine Lourie and Tracey Shavers hosted a sold-out steak dinner at the Imperial Club in Chatham and outlined their plans for their next big fundraiser, Boxes and Blankets.
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According to Gardiner, the event is being held Oct. 16 outside the Downtown Chatham Centre and is intended to bring awareness to the issues facing homeless individuals. They are asking people to pick up pledge forms and raise money for sleeping overnight in a cardboard box outside the mall, living for one night like a person who has nowhere to sleep.
“Statistics for June alone show there were 16 men and 3 women who were homeless,” Gardiner explained. “Women have the option of the shelter here in town but men are given a bus ticket and shipped to Windsor or London. The only option the men have is to sleep outside or go out of the community.”
The four strangers met this summer while working on other community projects and found they all shared the same belief that something needed to be done to help break the cycle of poverty for people living on the streets or the couches of friends and family.
“We just want to do our part to ensure people have a warm, dry place to sleep,” Gardiner said. “We’ll be starting out with 10 beds at the church and if there is a weather emergency, then we will use blow up beds to make sure everyone has a safe place to stay.”
Besides a place to lay their head for 90 days, New Beginning House will also be working with other community groups and organizations to provide the supports needed to give the people a hand-up with resources such as counselling and training focuses on food and nutrition, medical care, psychological treatment, financial literacy and more.
They also hope with the money raised, they can add a resource room to the church so family can visit with residents with some privacy.
Gardiner said a round table discussion with all the resource agencies and groups is underway to make sure all the supports needed will be available.
“We want to give them hope, not just a quick fix. It turns into a cycle and we want to help them and give them the skills to eradicate homelessness,” Gardiner said.
Renovations on the New Beginning Ministries church basement on Wellington St. have begun, but the group expects the total cost of renovations and program funding will be approximately $100,000. They welcome help from the community with donations of time and/or materials as well as money.
“We will be organizing work bees and welcome anyone who has some time to spare and a skill we can put to use,” Gardiner said.
Boxes and Blankets registration will start at 6 p.m. and the event begins at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 outside the DCC until 7 a.m. on Oct. 17. The organizers are also looking for street buskers to entertain the participants in the downtown core.
Anyone interested in taking part in the fundraiser can contact New Beginning Ministries office at 226-627-9376 (Gardiner). Pledge forms can picked up at the office or at the Chatham Voice newspaper at 84 Dover St. in Chatham.
WAY TO GO,,,YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME
You Ladie's are Incredibly Kind 🙂
Really great what you are doing!!
This is what community is all about. People don't choose to be homeless, they have not had a hand up in life in most cases and need someone to care. Lets pull together CK, we have done it in the past for other causes and the evidence shows we need this.