Hundreds of women and children who are victims of family violence in our community will now have a merrier Christmas thanks to the generousity of Global viewers.
In support of Give Me Shelter- a Global Edmonton and Shaw initiative designed to build awareness and benefit local women’s shelters- donations of Christmas gifts for women and children have been piling up at the Global Edmonton studios for weeks.
On Wednesday morning, all of those donations were packed up and transported to five local women’s shelters.
“The response this year was, I think, the best ever. Everyone donated so much. We got gift cards this year, we got blankets, toys, toiletries, you name it. The donations were overwhelming,” explained Global Edmonton’s Senior Marketing Manager, Rhonda Halarewich.
In just one day, women’s shelters in Alberta help 744 women and 606 children, dozens of whom are turned away due to a lack of resources.
The Executive Director of WIN House- one of the shelters that benefits from Give Me Shelter- says the decision for women to leave a violent environment can be extremely difficult, especially around this time of year, and this campaign really helps support those women and their children.
“We have 509 children and 436 women in a year and all of our women and children that are fleeing, leave with nothing,” said Janine Fraser, “When women are leaving, especially at Christmas time, they’re very concerned because they’re leaving everything. They’re leaving the presents that they’ve bought, they’re leaving their homes, they’re leaving their Christmas trees, and so they’re thinking ‘How am I going to explain that we’re not going to have Christmas this year’ and we tell them, ‘You will have Christmas this year.'”
An army of volunteers gathered at Global Edmonton Wednesday morning, to load all of the donations onto five ETS buses. The buses then transported the donations to five local women’s shelters.
Among the volunteers were the University of Alberta Pandas and Golden Bears.
“As athletes, and even University students, we’re really fortunate to be in the positions we’re in so, it’s really important for us to give back to the community and people that don’t have as much as we do,” said Golden Bear Brendan Deforge.
There were also some familiar Global faces among those packing up the donations.
“It’s the least I can do. People have gone to all the trouble of donating all of this stuff and we’ve got to get it to the people who need it,” said Mike Sobel.
“(Our viewers) have been so generous and it’s our little bit that we can do. I can’t imagine not getting to spend Christmas with my own family and my loved ones, and unfortunately, some people have hard times and challenges and this is what we can do to support them,” added Jennifer Crosby.
Fraser says the much needed support doesn’t go unnoticed by those who need it the most.
“We had two moms come in at two different times and each time they left crying, and one of the comments was that they can’t believe that total strangers are so kind. So, it makes a huge difference for women that are in crisis.”
The donations from this year’s Give Me Shelter campaign were divided amongst the following five shelters:
– WIN House
– Wings
– A Safe Place
– LaSalle Residence
– Lurana Shelter
To see pictures from Wednesday’s pack up, head to our Facebook page.
With files from Kendra Slugoski.
Comments