UPDATE: Global Edmonton’s 2023 Give Me Shelter campaign ended up raising over $88,400 for six women’s shelters.
In 2022, thousands of calls for help were made to six shelters Give Me Shelter supports, and nearly 1,600 women and children stayed at one of those women’s shelter in the Edmonton area. Many others had to be turned away.
That is why donation drives like Global Edmonton’s Give Me Shelter campaign are important. Cash and gift cards go towards supporting women and children in an extremely difficult time in their lives.
On Wednesday, a steady stream of vehicles stopped the Global Edmonton station to help.
Give Me Shelter started 20 years ago when former Global News anchor Lynda Steele saw a flyer asking for items to be donated to women’s shelters.
Steele said she bought items on the list, and at the time the local 5 p.m. newscast started, she had the items on air and put a call out to Edmontonians to help.
“The reaction was just astonishing,” Steele said. “It was immediate. All day long, all week long, reception would call me, ‘Lynda, there’s somebody downstairs with blankets or gifts or Barbies.’
“When I left in 2011, I was a little bit sad, but I thought I did what I could to keep it going and help people in the shelters. To see it carry on for two decades, honestly, it’s hard to believe.”
For years the studio would be filled with items. Now people give cash or gift cards as the cost of living is making it more difficult for women to flee abusive partners.
“It’s a perfect storm,” said Leslie Allen, the executive director of WIN House.
“Domestic violence has unfortunately been on the rise.”
La Salle & Lurana Shelter’s Patricia Vardas said her organization will help as many women as it can, but shelters are often at capacity and it means people will be turned away.
“It’s devastating to have to answer phone calls, and have no space for people who need it,” she said.
“Everybody has the right to be free in their home, and to be safe — to not be in fear.”
Vardas hopes campaigns like Give Me Shelter bring more awareness and will lead to more government support.
In the last two decades, new shelters have emerged. Three years ago, Lynne Rosychuk opened Jessie’s House in honour of her daughter. Jessica Martel was killed in front of her children the day she planned to escape her abuser.
“It was the worse day of my life,” Rosychuk said. “I knew something bad was going to happen. I actually heard her voice in my head that day — it yelled out, ‘Mom!’
“We were seeing the violence in her home and it was getting increasingly worse. We had tried to reach out to shelters in Edmonton and they were always full.”
Nothing will bring her daughter back, but bringing help to others has brought some peace.
“That’s been our healing journey, is to see other families being able to thrive and escape a life of fear.”
The ultimate goal is for there to no longer be a need, but while there still is, donation drives like Give Me Shelter will continue to ease some of the burden.
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