Without wheels into the New Year

We don’t own a large fleet of vehicles to serve the thousands of people who turn to NightShift for help or to get involved. There’s our aging clothing truck and converted mobile kitchen trailer which are in heavy use 365 days/year. Then there’s our mobile counselling/medical Care Bus which we gingerly bring to the streets a couple of times a week. And finally there’s this trusty van, which is in daily use picking up the much-needed food and clothing donations and supplies that allow us to operate our outreach programs. Daily – until it was stolen on New Year’s Eve. Yesterday the police were able to recover our decade-old Ford Passenger van, but it’s pretty damaged. We don’t yet know how badly or what it will cost to put it back on the road, or if we can afford to make it roadworthy again. In the meantime we’re limping. Daily pickups are stalling. As a not-for-profit society, NightShift operates entirely without government subsidies, so we run on a tight budget. It’s pretty heartbreaking when the fundraising we pursue to provide programs for people hurting and lonely, living in poverty or without a roof, has to be rerouted to repairing damages or replacing the wheels to support those services. We’ve been running our “more than soup” campaign to invite anyone in the community to get involved in bringing hope and purpose to people in need – and we’re all in need of unconditional love. Our Christmas Challenge had been successful in matching the pledges of generous individuals, businesses and groups to raise the money for additional daytime programs to augment our nightly outreach. We had been hoping to extend our reach and expand our services to other areas. We were even looking at updating our aging fleet of outreach vehicles. Now we will have to break into those funds to meet this other, unexpected and more pressing challenge – one to keep existing programs on the street at all. If you can help us in any way, please contact us. If you wish to make a donation through PayPal we would be extremely grateful: Tax receipts will be issued in accordance with CRA for donations over $15 after the end of the fiscal year (December 31st). NightShift Street Ministries Society registered charity number #85203 8942 RR0001.