Lloydminster Men’s Shelter supporters gathered in front of the PSM Park Centre building at Bud Miller All Seasons Park before hitting the trails for a walk Saturday evening. They surpassed their $20,000 goal for the event. Jeannette Benoit-Leipert Meridian Source
The Lloydminster Men’s Shelter held their biggest fundraiser of the year Saturday evening; an event called The Coldest Night of the Year.
The walk, held at the Bud Miller All Seasons Park, was meant to simulate the hardships of those living with housing insecurity in Lloydminster.
“Everyone does runs and things like that, but to do one in the winter–typically it’s very cold in mid-late February,” said Michael Davison, executive director Lloydminster Men’s Shelter.
“It just really allows us to reflect on the hardship that’s going on with those experiencing housing insecurity who have no place to rest their head for the night,” said Davison.
“It just provides a level of appreciation for the services, and the importance of the things that we do.”
Mayor Gerald Aalbers showed up to wish the walkers well before heading out from the PSM Park Centre building, where they met up following the walk to enjoy a hot bowl of chili and other delicious treats.
“City council is certainly going to continue to work with the men’s shelter, and other organizations in our city that help those that are less fortunate,” said Aalbers.
“So thanks so much for being here. Enjoy the evening, enjoy the fellowship, stay warm.”
This year’s funds will go toward ‘seed’ capital so they can expand the shelter’s capacity and move to a location that better suits their needs.
“As part of our core programming we can actually only shelter 28 people under our current contracts and restrictions,” said Davison, adding that the demand for their services far exceeds what they are able to currently provide.
That was made clear by a housing needs assessment conducted by the City of Lloydminster, in which they identified at least 193 individuals experiencing some form of housing insecurity in the city.
“We’re hoping to earmark this money for a capital project, start seriously looking at things we can do with the money and looking for a different location,” said Davison.
“There are so many factors that go into it. One thing that would be ignorant would be for us not to acknowledge that being our neighbour is difficult, and we’ve certainly learned that as we try to engage with the city … getting a few zoning changes, just tweaked, so we could handle our services.”
He says another issue is that the further they move out of the downtown core, the more fundraising they’ll have to do to keep providing their services.
“While we provide shelter and food and basic outreach services for our clients, more enhanced, comprehensive outreach services still remain in the downtown core,” Davison explained.
“So, we will need a way to get them from our location to the downtown core if we move out of the downtown area. Those are some of the realities we’re looking at. Very achievable goals, we really look forward to success in this.”
And successful they were, in their Coldest Night of the Year fundraising efforts.
“Right now, we’ve hit 115 per cent of our goal, which makes me super excited. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year, so hitting 100 per cent is always our goal and then anything over that is just great,” said Davison.
