Sweet little Destiny may only be three years old, but she’s proud of her home – a home that love built.
John Derringer, the morning show host of Q107, and Ellen Campbell, founder of Abuse Hurts, teamed up 14 years ago through Derringer’s 13 Days of Christmas to help build lives, and now homes.
“This is the first time we’ve done an individual house and it normally isn’t something we would do, but it just presented itself,” said Campbell.
Abuse Hurts is a charity committed to accessible support, healing and empowerment of anyone touched by the trauma of abuse through programs like Delivering Hope and more recently DreamBuilds. The charity stepped up when Jennifer Brown, a sexual abuse survivor, needed a stable home to raise her daughter Destiny.
“I had no walls. I had no kitchen. I had no bathroom. I had a toilet sticking out of the floor – I had basically nothing,” said Brown.
“Jennifer grew up in this house. She doesn’t have a lot of good memorie,s but I told her that this can become her home and the memories can go,” said Campbell.
“We spent three months working on this with volunteers and tradespeople and transformed it from really just a shell into a beautiful home.”
“They take the resources that they receive from the incredible generosity of Toronto residents and are able to make that work over the rest of the year,” said Derringer.
Derringer’s 13 Days of Christmas is now in its 14th year and has raised more than $10.5 million in product and cash for Abuse Hurts in order to assist more than 100,000 individuals every year through more than 100 agencies.
“This is such a labour of love,” said Campbell. “I was abused and it’s so wonderful to see that something so horrible that happened to me has turned into something so good.”
“Ellen has helped me more than I could ever put into words and she continues to help me,” said Brown.
“I can’t even put into words how grateful I am. This house looks amazing and it’s mine. It’s mine and my daughter’s.”