November 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Reflections on a Gala full of Light

The light: coming from the dark of despair and brokenness, into the light of the Cross. This is how NightShift has been described and how our logo came into being.

Saturday’s Gala was an awesome evening of light! Every year the team pulls together – with such a drive and determination – to provide a delightful evening of celebration and sharing, reflecting on the year and looking to the future of all that NightShift can be. Every year this most important fundraising event in our calendar brings people together with the desire to make a difference. In the spirit of community and corporate responsibility, we can each individually accomplish much together.

Seeing a packed room with everyone dressed in their finest is surely a stark contrast to what we see daily on the street. We have much to be thankful for. It was therefore all the more heartwarming to have some of the members of our Street Soccer Team join us. They had – no pun intended – a ball! Lee Aaron and her musicians were amazing.

Everyone had a purpose for attending, which was to support NightShift and the people we love on the street. We shared details about our plans and walked our guests virtually around the Care Village in Fort St. John where we are building a place of retreat and restoration. 

I would once again like to thank everyone who participated in any way they could, from our generous sponsors to the donors of the wonderful live and silent auction items, from our guests on the night to anyone participating from afar, from every individual who shared of their time, talent and tirelessness to each of you who pray for NightShift and the people we serve. Thank you.

MaryAnne Connor (Mac)

Photos courtesy of Derek and his team at LeaderBoard

Filed Under: Fundraising, Homelessness Tagged With: , , ,
October 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

3 dates for your diary

1. Our heartfelt thanks go to everyone who voted in the first round of the Aviva Community Fund campaign and brought the Care Village project within the top 40 of the $100-$150k. category of deserving causes. We didn’t make it to the semi-finals yet, but we’re not giving up! With your continued support we are in with an excellent chance of making it through in this round. Voting opens today, Monday 24th October, with 15 votes per registered person. Please help us by voting every day until 9th November.

2. The Care Village is also the focus of our fundraising efforts at the 5th Annual Gala of Light. Please join us on Saturday 19th November as we welcome Lee Aaron to perform for all our guests. Support NightShift’s pursuit in offering hope, love and care with your attendance, sponsorship or donation.

3. NightShift is a proud participant at this year’s Beyond Homelessness Conference, presented by City in Focus. Join the series of expert panels, workshops, discussions and key-note speaker, Brian Walsh, this coming weekend 28-29th October at Tenth Church in Vancouver.

Filed Under: Fundraising, Homelessness Tagged With: , , , , ,
November 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With a little help from our friends

Our outreach program is not funded by government dollars, but by the generosity of individuals, businesses and organizations. That’s dollar-for-dollar the funds we need to run our programs 365 days of the year. Those funds are necessary to run our warehouse, where we accept, stock and manage donations of food and supplies, blankets and clothing, which are handed out every night of the year. Those funds help operate the volunteer program, which coordinates hundreds of volunteers  to manage the distribution and offer a continuum of friendship and support. Those funds help fuel and maintain the vehicles, from which we serve and which allow us to take counselling to the streets.  Those funds pay the rent so that our day shift can meet the administration needs to help support the poor and homeless people in our community.

In a time of global financial insecurity, we are overwhelmed with offers of help, gifts-in-kind and thousands of hours that people give so selflessly of themselves.

At this point we would like to thank everyone who has contributed in any way to supporting the cause to ease the pain of poverty and homelessness in our midst. Whether you have given a dollar-a-day or an hour of your time, whether you have collected blankets in a drive or assembled hundreds of toiletries in the much-needed care packages, whether you have pounded the nightly pavements with our AOK or street teams, whether you have manned the telephone or written emails to your friends to encourage their involvement, whether you have made peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches or handed out hot soup – we couldn’t have done it without every single one of you. Thank you.

In addition to the daily and monthly contributions that come in through churches, businesses and individual donors, we organize two major fundraising events every year. Our Gala of Light fundraiser is taking place this weekend. Our Angel Sponsor of the 4th Annual Gala of Light is Vesta Properties, without whose continued determination and drive we would have achieved so much less. Thank you to Kent and the team for all you do.

If we save just one life tonight, it will all have been worth it.

With heatfelt thanks,

MaryAnne Connor

Filed Under: Street Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,