Kamloops Caravan of Care
Tax deductible
The Kamloops Virtual Caravan of Care
Helping ~'A Way Home' for homeless youth / youth aging out of foster care~ & ~The Thompson Nicola Cariboo United Way's community fund ~
Feel free to share this link with your coworkers, friends and even challenge your business competitors because in the end we're all Canadians and neighbours in the same community.
On this May 7th of 2021, is where positive change can begin anew and create an echo for so many in our community; for the youth aging out of foster care and youth whom are already homeless, all facing down the worst possible introduction into the reality that this will be their adulthood; mental health trauma brought on by the influx of domestic violence, hunger, ODs, suicide, sex trafficking, crime and the senseless stigmatization that others see them as being not worth anything.
So, we are reaching out to you and many others today in response to the current mental and physical health of families and individuals that last year's multitude of hardships has left everyone in. With all the lockdowns that have occurred, the result has reduced infection rates inpart but has also seen the increase in chemical dependence relapses, increases of overdose deaths, mental crises, depression, suicides and domestic violence.
'Nothing is heavy if everyone lifts'
~a little inspirational note I've read Katie Neustaeter (the UW TNC interm director) write
I'm asking you and/or your company to team alongside with the other industries in the Kamloops area and Canada to help combat these social problems in a meaningful and effective way for our community. Having been a kid's soccer coach in previous years as well as a millwright at a mine, I've seen the positive effect of strength in numbers working towards a common goal as a team; whether its winning a game or safely relining a mill. Combining and pooling your strengths with that of other companies, be it a supplier, vendor or contractor in the fields of resource, tradesmen and home industries, together we can greatly mitigate these social problems and the economic repercussions that follow after them for years to come.
HOW WE'LL DO IT! -
- First the preferred method is by donating here on GoFundMe. It'll be left on as a virtual caravan for companies and individuals until the end of June for if you cannot make it on the day via the email invite and didnt want to miss this moment to help your community. Just know, you are just as valued and important even in your absence and your community thanks you.
- Next, if Health Orders permit that you can make it, organizing ourselves into the 'Caravan of Care' everyone must stay to their vehicles to keep to any physical distancing requirements. In a procession of trucks, drive by the designated location (as indicated via the email invite) to give a salute/honk/wave to our honoured social worker individual(s). Although the GoFundMe is the recommended way to donate money to make sure maximum social distancing is maintained, some do have cheques coming and can either hand off their donation into the designated United Way box held by our UW rep safely standing to the side or park in the dirt lot that is just past the location. Those that park can then walk over to the designated dropbox, near our honorees, to drop off their donation cheques made out to the United Way TNC. In addition to cheques, if there are items that are suitable to use as gift basket items that United Way/A Way Home can use for their future fundraising campaigns or simply a box full of blankets, toques, or living supplies... feel free to add those as well.
This is a bit of a 'surprise moment' to avoid creating public gatherings... think of it as a VIP tip of the hat to just a few of the so many amazing individual social workers and social organizations that have been fighting to help those in need of help that are beyond their own means.
Furthermore, media will also be notified to have a chance to report on this moment and hopefully Kamloops will wake up Monday to a weekend of wonder and amazement for what we have accomplished.
Afterwards, all funds raised will be split 50% between A Way Home and the TNC United Way's community fund. The community fund will go towards helping nonprofits suchas but not limited to Canadian Mental Health Association, Kamloops Sexual Assualt Counseling Centre, Boys and Girls Club and to other youth programs like the important tutoring program of One to One Reading.
A LITTLE CLOSER LOOK AT WHO WE'RE HELPING! -
~A Way Home~
Recently, Kamloops lost one of their strongest advocates for eliminating youth homelessness (which there are over a hundred such kids in Kamloops area alone) and for youth aging out of foster care that end up in homelessness for not only Kamloops but BC and Canada was Katherine McParland, whom passed on Dec 5, 2020. Having lived the homeless experience for several years after aging out of foster care herself, Katherine set out to lay down the groundwork to end the cycle that fed into the homeless crowd by starting A Way Home Kamloops which offers shelter and counseling for youth to carry on to be a more successful and functional member of society. Her dream was to have a safe apartment building designed to shelter and improve the lives of these individuals by keeping them out of gangs and drugs and off the streets. This caravan could be the first of its kind in Canada if we can make this dream come true in memory of Katherine whose birthday would have been on May 8th. Check out their site and many good initiatives and research articles... and can even donate directly to their cause as well.
https://www.awayhomekamloops.com/
~The Thompson Nicola Cariboo United Way community funds help a great number of nonprofit organizations such as but not limited to the following:
~The Kamloops Canadian Mental Health Association, CMHA,~
Headed by Director Alfred Achoba and managers Christa, Shelly, Cheryl and Michelle have been constant voices for the voiceless. Challenging even recent city council decisions on behalf of those whom require shelters. They help run shelters in their wide interior region at their Clubhouses and further offer educational programs about mental health awareness for the public. AND did you know May is also Mental Health Awareness Month and CMHA's Ride Don't Hide https://kamloops.cmha.bc.ca/
~Kamloops Sexual Assualt Counseling Center ~
The KSACC, being headed by Alix Dolson, as of the initial hard lockdown being lifted has a waitlist that'll take about 8 months to match victims to counselors! Once the restrictions lifted, victims were able to escape their intimate violent partners to seek help, often leaving law enforcement out of the picture due to fear of reprisals so sometimes organizations such as the KSACC are the only ones they'll turn to for support. However, back in 2002 funding across BC for assualt centers was cut by the government of that time. To the tune of $200,000 annual funding being cut and gone has left them stretched thin ever since. https://www.ksacc.ca/
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/kamloops-councillor-calls-for-province-to-fund-local-sexual-assault-counselling-centre-1.24036579
The many programs backed by the United Way Thompson Nicola Cariboo behind Interm Director, Katie Neustaeter, stretches from Kamloops area to Merritt and Williams Lake, including CMHA, The Boys and Girls Club, One to One reading program and many more. The lack of funding, due to last year's economic hit, means there were fewer donations from private citizens and businesses that normally would have helped these not for profit organizations and have left the most vulnerable of our neighbours, families, friends, coworkers and our own children's classmates just that much more in need or even new to the world of need.
https://www.unitedwaytnc.ca/
This is a moment and a chance for Canada's industrial sectors to stand together, both small and large, to say although we may sometimes be competitors for business or have largely remained unknown to the general public, we are Canadian first and are here for all of our fellow Canadian neighbours.
Thankyou kindly for your time,
your considerations and donations
You may contact me via GoFundMe messaging, be patient as I'm a full time working man second and a full time family man first but I will take the time to respond as time permits
There are more links below to other related stories and research to current social issues.
At a convenient time, read some to further broaden yourself and others on these important issues with facts not socialmedia stigmas.
Many kind regards,
Nathaniel Martin
THE FURTHER READINGS -
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/valleyview-kamloops-garbage-crime-homeless-campers-1.6004921
https://cfjctoday.com/2021/02/23/we-didnt-know-what-we-were-going-to-do-kamloops-non-profits-navigate-pandemic-trials-triumphs/
https://cfjctoday.com/2021/02/25/we-cant-let-it-go-on-for-another-six-months-kamloops-council-charts-path-to-social-issue-solutions/
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/kamloops-council-approves-initiatives-that-target-street-issues-1.24289919
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/bass-wants-kamloops-council-to-reconsider-social-issues-motion-it-passed-1.24290916
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/opinion/letter-kamloops-councillor-seeks-to-clarify-motions-on-social-issues-1.2429087
https://www.stopoverdose.gov.bc.ca/theweekly/myths-about-overdose-crisis-bc
Violence spikes during pandemic 300%
https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/vancouver-island/2020/4/17/1_4901765.html
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-domestic-violence-what-you-should-know
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2024046
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-lockdown-is-not-actually-safer-intimate-partner-violence-during-covid-19-2020070720529
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/as-family-well-being-declines-so-does-childrens-behavior-2020100621088
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200818/radiology-study-suggests-horrifying-rise-in-domestic-violence-during-pandemic
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-domestic-violence/2020/09/06/78c134de-ec7f-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/domestic-violence-rates-rising-due-to-covid19-1.5545851
Helping ~'A Way Home' for homeless youth / youth aging out of foster care~ & ~The Thompson Nicola Cariboo United Way's community fund ~
Feel free to share this link with your coworkers, friends and even challenge your business competitors because in the end we're all Canadians and neighbours in the same community.
On this May 7th of 2021, is where positive change can begin anew and create an echo for so many in our community; for the youth aging out of foster care and youth whom are already homeless, all facing down the worst possible introduction into the reality that this will be their adulthood; mental health trauma brought on by the influx of domestic violence, hunger, ODs, suicide, sex trafficking, crime and the senseless stigmatization that others see them as being not worth anything.
So, we are reaching out to you and many others today in response to the current mental and physical health of families and individuals that last year's multitude of hardships has left everyone in. With all the lockdowns that have occurred, the result has reduced infection rates inpart but has also seen the increase in chemical dependence relapses, increases of overdose deaths, mental crises, depression, suicides and domestic violence.
'Nothing is heavy if everyone lifts'
~a little inspirational note I've read Katie Neustaeter (the UW TNC interm director) write
I'm asking you and/or your company to team alongside with the other industries in the Kamloops area and Canada to help combat these social problems in a meaningful and effective way for our community. Having been a kid's soccer coach in previous years as well as a millwright at a mine, I've seen the positive effect of strength in numbers working towards a common goal as a team; whether its winning a game or safely relining a mill. Combining and pooling your strengths with that of other companies, be it a supplier, vendor or contractor in the fields of resource, tradesmen and home industries, together we can greatly mitigate these social problems and the economic repercussions that follow after them for years to come.
HOW WE'LL DO IT! -
- First the preferred method is by donating here on GoFundMe. It'll be left on as a virtual caravan for companies and individuals until the end of June for if you cannot make it on the day via the email invite and didnt want to miss this moment to help your community. Just know, you are just as valued and important even in your absence and your community thanks you.
- Next, if Health Orders permit that you can make it, organizing ourselves into the 'Caravan of Care' everyone must stay to their vehicles to keep to any physical distancing requirements. In a procession of trucks, drive by the designated location (as indicated via the email invite) to give a salute/honk/wave to our honoured social worker individual(s). Although the GoFundMe is the recommended way to donate money to make sure maximum social distancing is maintained, some do have cheques coming and can either hand off their donation into the designated United Way box held by our UW rep safely standing to the side or park in the dirt lot that is just past the location. Those that park can then walk over to the designated dropbox, near our honorees, to drop off their donation cheques made out to the United Way TNC. In addition to cheques, if there are items that are suitable to use as gift basket items that United Way/A Way Home can use for their future fundraising campaigns or simply a box full of blankets, toques, or living supplies... feel free to add those as well.
This is a bit of a 'surprise moment' to avoid creating public gatherings... think of it as a VIP tip of the hat to just a few of the so many amazing individual social workers and social organizations that have been fighting to help those in need of help that are beyond their own means.
Furthermore, media will also be notified to have a chance to report on this moment and hopefully Kamloops will wake up Monday to a weekend of wonder and amazement for what we have accomplished.
Afterwards, all funds raised will be split 50% between A Way Home and the TNC United Way's community fund. The community fund will go towards helping nonprofits suchas but not limited to Canadian Mental Health Association, Kamloops Sexual Assualt Counseling Centre, Boys and Girls Club and to other youth programs like the important tutoring program of One to One Reading.
A LITTLE CLOSER LOOK AT WHO WE'RE HELPING! -
~A Way Home~
Recently, Kamloops lost one of their strongest advocates for eliminating youth homelessness (which there are over a hundred such kids in Kamloops area alone) and for youth aging out of foster care that end up in homelessness for not only Kamloops but BC and Canada was Katherine McParland, whom passed on Dec 5, 2020. Having lived the homeless experience for several years after aging out of foster care herself, Katherine set out to lay down the groundwork to end the cycle that fed into the homeless crowd by starting A Way Home Kamloops which offers shelter and counseling for youth to carry on to be a more successful and functional member of society. Her dream was to have a safe apartment building designed to shelter and improve the lives of these individuals by keeping them out of gangs and drugs and off the streets. This caravan could be the first of its kind in Canada if we can make this dream come true in memory of Katherine whose birthday would have been on May 8th. Check out their site and many good initiatives and research articles... and can even donate directly to their cause as well.
https://www.awayhomekamloops.com/
~The Thompson Nicola Cariboo United Way community funds help a great number of nonprofit organizations such as but not limited to the following:
~The Kamloops Canadian Mental Health Association, CMHA,~
Headed by Director Alfred Achoba and managers Christa, Shelly, Cheryl and Michelle have been constant voices for the voiceless. Challenging even recent city council decisions on behalf of those whom require shelters. They help run shelters in their wide interior region at their Clubhouses and further offer educational programs about mental health awareness for the public. AND did you know May is also Mental Health Awareness Month and CMHA's Ride Don't Hide https://kamloops.cmha.bc.ca/
~Kamloops Sexual Assualt Counseling Center ~
The KSACC, being headed by Alix Dolson, as of the initial hard lockdown being lifted has a waitlist that'll take about 8 months to match victims to counselors! Once the restrictions lifted, victims were able to escape their intimate violent partners to seek help, often leaving law enforcement out of the picture due to fear of reprisals so sometimes organizations such as the KSACC are the only ones they'll turn to for support. However, back in 2002 funding across BC for assualt centers was cut by the government of that time. To the tune of $200,000 annual funding being cut and gone has left them stretched thin ever since. https://www.ksacc.ca/
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/kamloops-councillor-calls-for-province-to-fund-local-sexual-assault-counselling-centre-1.24036579
The many programs backed by the United Way Thompson Nicola Cariboo behind Interm Director, Katie Neustaeter, stretches from Kamloops area to Merritt and Williams Lake, including CMHA, The Boys and Girls Club, One to One reading program and many more. The lack of funding, due to last year's economic hit, means there were fewer donations from private citizens and businesses that normally would have helped these not for profit organizations and have left the most vulnerable of our neighbours, families, friends, coworkers and our own children's classmates just that much more in need or even new to the world of need.
https://www.unitedwaytnc.ca/
This is a moment and a chance for Canada's industrial sectors to stand together, both small and large, to say although we may sometimes be competitors for business or have largely remained unknown to the general public, we are Canadian first and are here for all of our fellow Canadian neighbours.
Thankyou kindly for your time,
your considerations and donations
You may contact me via GoFundMe messaging, be patient as I'm a full time working man second and a full time family man first but I will take the time to respond as time permits
There are more links below to other related stories and research to current social issues.
At a convenient time, read some to further broaden yourself and others on these important issues with facts not socialmedia stigmas.
Many kind regards,
Nathaniel Martin
THE FURTHER READINGS -
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/valleyview-kamloops-garbage-crime-homeless-campers-1.6004921
https://cfjctoday.com/2021/02/23/we-didnt-know-what-we-were-going-to-do-kamloops-non-profits-navigate-pandemic-trials-triumphs/
https://cfjctoday.com/2021/02/25/we-cant-let-it-go-on-for-another-six-months-kamloops-council-charts-path-to-social-issue-solutions/
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/kamloops-council-approves-initiatives-that-target-street-issues-1.24289919
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/bass-wants-kamloops-council-to-reconsider-social-issues-motion-it-passed-1.24290916
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/opinion/letter-kamloops-councillor-seeks-to-clarify-motions-on-social-issues-1.2429087
https://www.stopoverdose.gov.bc.ca/theweekly/myths-about-overdose-crisis-bc
Violence spikes during pandemic 300%
https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/vancouver-island/2020/4/17/1_4901765.html
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-domestic-violence-what-you-should-know
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2024046
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-lockdown-is-not-actually-safer-intimate-partner-violence-during-covid-19-2020070720529
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/as-family-well-being-declines-so-does-childrens-behavior-2020100621088
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200818/radiology-study-suggests-horrifying-rise-in-domestic-violence-during-pandemic
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-domestic-violence/2020/09/06/78c134de-ec7f-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/domestic-violence-rates-rising-due-to-covid19-1.5545851
Organizer
Nathaniel Martin
Organizer
Kamloops, BC
Thompson Nicola Cariboo United Way
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically tax deductible in Canada.
