Walk for Hungry and Homeless Tonight
Prince George, B.C. – People in over one hundred Canadian communities will take to the streets tonight for the Coldest Night of the Year walk, an event which has raised over $12 million nationally to support the hungry and homeless since 2011.
And here in Prince George participants will get a realistic snapshot of life on the streets in the winter as nighttime temperatures will be dropping into the minus low teens this evening and throughout the coming week.
The local walk is co-sponsored by AWAC (Association Advocating for Women and Children) and St. Giles Presbyterian Church. Participants can choose the distance they wish to walk, with 2, 5 and 10km routes set up.
The Start/Finish point and the hub for the event is St. Giles Presbyterian Church at 15th Avenue and Edmonton Street. Key times to note are as follows:
4pm – Registration opens. All walkers must check in and sign a waiver form.
5pm – Opening ceremony.
5:15pm – Walk begins.
6pm – Registration closes.
6pm to 8pm – A warm light meal is served to all walkers and volunteers.
8pm – Route closes and meal service ends.
There is a $25 registration fee however walkers who raise $150 (adults) or $75 (youth aged 13-17) do not have to pay the registration fee.
Participants are asked to show up with all cash and cheques payable to “Coldest Night of the Year”, pledge sheets with donor data filled out, and a signed Waiver Form which is available under TOOLS/FORMS on the main website at https://canada.cnoy.org/location/princegeorge
For the safety and security of all participants there will be rest stops available on all routes, maps of the well-signed routes will be available at the Welcome Desk at St. Giles, and there will be route marshals, rest stop attendants and security vehicles providing support along the routes.
All walkers under 12 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times.
The Prince George walk has a fundraising goal of $28,000 with just under $15,000 raised so far. The national goal is $4 million, with $3.3 million raised for the hungry and homeless prior to this evening’s walks across Canada.
One final advisory from walk organizers: please dress appropriately for the current weather conditions and wear good walking shoes or boots.
Comments
Oooh, I can hardly wait to see pictures of photo op Shirley and Mike at this event later on. I guess BC having the highest child poverty rate in the country, and record numbers of British Columbians using food banks is something they can get behind “voluntarily”, yet will not take action on as a government.
BC is the only province in Canada that does NOT have a Poverty Reduction Plan, a fact lost on the BC Liberals who will be attending this function for their pre-election photo ops.
Well, I wonder if the NDP candidates will show up.
Like the contents in the above news item states, ‘a realistic snapshot of life on the streets’. Totally correct, and that is one of the reasons why I do not go downtown, I sympathize with the truly legitimate people that do attempt to get out and be an asset, but then you have the other types that will milk this for all its worth saying ‘Poor, poor me I need assistance to get my smokes and an iPhone’. And it is a photo op for the news hounds politicians. LOL
The day the homeless start walking, and participating in these events, I’ll really get involved
BOOM, and there it is! Could not have said it better in the amount of words used. Too busy scamming the system to actually take partL LOL
So DAMN TRUE!
Unbelievable the lack of compassion for your fellow man.If one could bottle up this crap you would have enough stench to scare a skunk out of the country. Give these people a job and they will turn the corner and become contributing members of society. Do not judge your fellow man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.
Mmmmm…..hungry ? homeless ? give them a job not a walk. Poverty reduction plan entails people WANTING to work like the rest of us and not a free ride to live………right HB
So you are going to be the first to offer a job to them, right? No? I didn’t think so.
@ Hahaha, the day that you actually put your money where your mouth is, by starting and operating your own business and by hiring people and creating jobs, then that will be the day that I actually start giving any credence to anything that you say!
Just think, if you start your own business, you will have an abundance of labour available to you. All you will need to do it take a walk downtown and offer jobs to all those that you see hanging out down there! Simple! Easy peasy, right!
I wasn’t the one who was saying to give them a job, out of some sense of righteous superiority. He said give them a job. All I asked is if he was going to put his money where his mouth is.
I would never open a business, because I would have to deal with people like you as potential customers. If I had to deal with people like you all day long, I’d probably end up doing something that would get me put in jail.
@ Hahaha,
“Would” never open a business”? Perhaps you meant “Couldn’t ever open a business”?
Some people are leaders and others are ok just being followers, right Hahaha!
Have you sought out help for your apparent anger “issues”? It’s ok to seek help, or didn’t you know, haha!
Geez, a guy just states that he can’t stand people like you and all of a sudden he has anger issues. LOL
Being a “follower” ain’t so bad if you are any indication of what it takes to be a “leader”.
Geez Hahaha, I thought that all of you Liberal progressives were supposed to love everybody!
You might want to reconsider what you are saying in your posts, as you are getting awful close to hurting my feelings, and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?
Haha! ;-)
Generally speaking, sitting around waiting for someone to offer you a job doesn’t work so well.
Some of the comments here just amaze me. Maybe someday one of you will suffer from a personal injury that is not work related with no insurance. I hope you have fun after you drain your bank account.
That is why you get disability insurance. Oh look at the Liberal everyone. Someone says something they don’t like and they wish pain, and death upon you. Sound like my old Hillary supporting friends in the USA. Disagree with them, and they wish nothing but awful events on your life.
Not much different than the Libs here in Canada I see.
Do you really think the homeless in this town are hard working people that hurt themselves outside of work? Really? lol
This walk will fix that?
Many are young and able to work. Many just want things free from the taxpayer……………
Heard a program on CBC radio, there is a movement afoot to pay everyone in Canada 21k or more a year working or not. If you make more the tax man will rob you blind . Think it is a Green Party initiative guaranteed income for everyone over a certain age
It’s coming whether people like it or not. It’s either that or social instability. If it is a choice between taxes or this country ending up a war zone like many other countries on this planet, I’ll take the taxation.
We could be a welfare state like Norway. We’re almost there anyway with our generous social services.
oh and what happens when you run out of taxpayers, Einstein? Where do you think taxes are generated? The homeless? Where does the money come from? The 50k Syrians who landed, and we are paying for?
You sound like the Greeks, and there answer to everything.. taxes.. need a quick reminder what happened in Europe in the mid 2000’s?
And people wonder why Trump was elected. The silent majority is tired of taking it up the backside by the Liberal elite who want to give everything away, for nothing. The gig is up, the people are sick and tired of hearing from you people, the whining crying , uninformed voices who get front and centre on the CBC and the Huffington Post.
Speaking of Einsteins. If you actually read the comments on the CBC site, you would see that they are rife with comments from Neanderthal Conservatives. I’m sure you would fit right in.
We aren’t going to run out of taxpayers any time soon, genius. There will always be taxpayers as long as government exists. There would still be taxpayers even if your dream government arrived; you know the one that would eliminate welfare, health care, pensions, labour laws, infrastructure and bring back the good old days of the 1800s for you.
@RustyS
Generous social services? That assertion by you tells me that you have never had the pleasure of receiving the “generosity” of our social welfare system. LOL.
Guaranteed income is not coming whether we like it or not bwahaha. To bad for you.
Yep, you heard me right hahaha. Generous social services. Compared to most of the test of the world, people have it pretty good here in Canada.
@Dow7501
Keep telling yourself that. The ongoing onslaught of automation will make most jobs extinct. A guaranteed income is going to have to be instituted to keep the Capitalist system from collapsing on itself and to prevent social instability in Capitalist economies.
People are going to have be given the means to absorb production from an automated, jobless economy. If the money doesn’t come from employment then it is going to have to come from a handout.
Comparing the social welfare systems (or lack thereof) of developing countries to Canada’s social system is a mug’s game. Comparing Canada’s social system to those of other developed nations, similar to Canada, shows that our system is entirely deficient.
I’d like to see you survive in this country on what is handed out from social assistance. I wouldn’t constantly have people trying to cadge money from me in front of convenience stores and in parking lots if our social assistance was “generous”.
@ Hahaha, I have also had people in front of convenience stores ask me for money, and so far haven’t given any of them any cash, not even a single quarter!
I have however, on many many occasions offered to buy them a sandwich or something else to eat. The VAST majority of times, I’m told that they don’t want something to eat, they want the cash. Sometimes the occasional one will accept a coffee and even fewer will actually come in and get a sandwich.
I suspect that the majority of the one’s that I have made the offer to are more interested in CASH because CASH buys cigarettes, CASH buys booze and CASH buys drugs!
So, I’ll keep offering the occasional sandwich, but I won’t offer them CASH. I’ll leave the cash up to the welfare system!
Therein lies our problem, people expect welfare to be forever. It is not, it is emergency help but so many people use it as a career which is just sad. But some are happy doing it. Solution? Is there one? I remember getting UI or pogey as it was called back in the 80s after a layoff during the global recession and actually being worried about losing my check if I didn’t fill out enough applications each month, so much so it is laughable now, had to even fill out a form listing the places I looked for work monthly. Does anyone look for work on EI or welfare anymore, because by the sounds of it they expect it to be their source of steady income for years to come. Standing outside the forestry office day in and day out awaiting some work firefighting at what is now the highways rescue on 15th and Ospika brings back memories. Still the same garage there that we used to sit against.
@Hahaha: Maybe welfare isn’t meant to be a lifestyle choice as many in this Country have made it.
@Slinky
Nobody thinks that they can be on EI forever. The EI benefit period is less than when you were collecting it in the ’80s and the wage replacement is substantially lower. Qualifying for and staying on EI now is a lot harder than the UI system that you were able to use. If you quit or got fired from your job in the ’80s you could qualify for UI. Try and see how much EI you qualify for if you quit a job that you are miserable in or get fired.
And I am tired of you Cons trying to lay the blame for languishing on welfare entirely at the feet of the recipient. Most people on welfare would prefer to work and have the standard of living that you fatted Conservative calves have. The amount of available jobs is outstripped by the amount of people applying for those jobs, so many welfare recipients are stuck on welfare long term due to lack of available work that pays a living wage, not because they like being on welfare.
If you put that way then I would choose NOT to work. Live off this rich country and system and enjoy life…………..
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”
Herman Mellville
Knew a guy a while back, a family man, who suffered a stroke. Paralyzed half his body and he could no longer speak. Lost his job, got late on his house payments, despite the fact that he resorted to picking up cans and bottles all day from the garbage containers in our part of the city.
Just before the bank foreclosed on his family’s house, he went downstairs with his 30-30, put the end of the barrel in his mouth and blew his brains out of the top of his head.
He was a proud man, and there was no way he was going to end up on the streets homeless. All you Alt Righties should stand up and applaud this man, it seems he found the solution to your homeless problem.
Too bad, the moderator will probably delete this comment… the Alt Right snowflakes on here are so easily offended when it comes to facing reality. Too bad, I really do miss that guy, and I know he would have approved this message. Hey just think of this comment as his legacy.
Few holes I your story but many factors to consider. Life insurance removes the suicide clause from your policy after 2 years and doubles accidental death.
But anyhow I know a guy, had a stroke and couldn’t talk anymore. Lost some motion but was able to function, was a very proud man and didn’t want to live that way as a burden on his remaining family. His family stepped in to support him, one member who wasn’t working moved in permanently to assist in their daily living. He died telling jokes in a hospital almost 15 years later of complications from a surgery. Same story, different outcome. You chose your path, government doesn’t always have to step in to fix your boo boo
So if a “boo boo” ever occurs in your life, you will do the right thing as a responsible, self-reliant Conservative and not avail yourself of government services such as EI, welfare or the health care system. You will prove that you can make it on your own by relying on your family and your own resources. Right?
Our family already has my friend, in our family the support is all around. When one is in pain mentally or monetarily we all try to help, sometimes to their anger but eventually put away the ego and capitulate. And we all don’t live in PG, in fact few of us do anymore as most those who did had moved in the 90s and never returned.
Health care system? Are you some kind of alt-rightie?
BeingHuman, you state that you “really do miss that guy”! Is this comment meant to imply that he was an important part of your life, perhaps even a friend?
If this man was a friend or someone that you would miss if he was no longer here, why didn’t you step in to offer assistance to him? You advocate “helping others” and yet it seems that you might not have even offered help to someone that you now miss!
Why didn’t you offer “help” to this person? Surely it couldn’t have been a case of “it’s someone else’s problem” could it be?
Well , you are a Lib. If this happened to my friend I would take care of him and give him shelter, no questions asked. Libs toss their friends aside.
Sure you would. It is easy to say something so glibly as long as the scenario remains theoretical.
What do you mean theoretical? Our aunt gave up 15 years of her life to serve the family for no pay just the joy it brought her, that is how theoretical it is. And she is married and her husband paid all the bills of the house while living in a bedroom upstairs. That is what family does, government isn’t your family – their not here to pander to your every wish, well maybe a socialist government is, after all in a real socialist government nothing is private
Yes, Slinky, I’m absolutely sure that your selfless aunt story is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
That is the problem with socialists, everyone is always so much better off than they are. Give someone an actual hand up instead of expecting the government to do it for you. You have no idea what family really is and I feel sorry for you
@Slinky
I’m pretty close to my family, so I suggest you stop making assumptions about me having no idea what family means. Political belief has nothing to do with familial connections.
Seems to me it is politically correct for bleeding hearts to voice their opinions but those who strongly disagree are criticized even more.
Again life has choices………..
“We have to remember that a single person living on social assistance in BC get double the annual income of a person in the Third World. We sould remember how good this country actually is.” ~ BC Liberal Housing Minister Richard Coleman
When your social safety net is so full of holes, you have to compare it to third world countries, just to make it look better!
BC Liberals have got to go!!!
He is comparing our social safety net to their entire population’s average annual income, not their poverty stricken people’s. For example comparing to India’s average annual income our welfare recipients in BC make easily 6 times that amount. 133 million families – not individuals but families (with households up to 5 people) earn less than 80 bucks US a month in India. That is poverty.
Some countries have people who actually live in garbage and recycling dumps making a US dollar a day equivalent on a stellar day, and they are happy doing it – that just boggles the mind. We have progressed so far that the thought of “living” on welfare is just no longer the yardstick, they actually expect to get ahead on it. I have friends on permanent disability and they actually have savings for trips believe it or not, they just have to manage their money properly. Welfare was never meant as a permanent solution, it is just a temporary hand up.
” I have friends on permanent disability and they actually have savings for trips believe it or not, they just have to manage their money properly. Welfare was never meant as a permanent solution, it is just a temporary hand up.”
So what are you saying? That your friends, who are able enough to go on trips, are not permanently disabled but are collecting disability benefits? You know about it and are not reporting them for defrauding the system?
I agree that the BC Liberals have to go, go all the way back to Victoria, victoriously!
GO Libs GO!!
And they will|!
And they will! Until the NDP get their integrity sorted out, the Liberals will remain our government.
Ummm… These BC Liberal MLAs are so rarely in Victoria, they are probably have to ask for directs to get to the Legislature!
ht tp://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/bc-legislature-sits-36-of-579-days-is-this-responsible-government/article14245947/
You still think the only time they are working is when they are sitting in the Legislature? You must be very young………….
Ummm… These BC Liberal MLAs are so rarely in Victoria, they are probably have to ask for directs to get to the Legislature!
ht tp://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/bc-legislature-sits-36-of-579-days-is-this-responsible-government/article14245947/
BH I think you may have confused Trudeau with Christy about rarely being around. He tries to avoid Rona like the Plague.
Hows your mining claim, dug out under Christy yet.
Don Hawkins, your story leaves me with some questions.
How and where is this money distributed, and who distributes it?
How much is kept for the administration of funds collected.
Is there a CEO who is salaried to run this organization, if so, what is that persons cut?
Source = cra-arc.gc.ca
AN ASSOCIATION ADVOCATING FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Is a registered charity.
Reporting period available for view are from 2012 to 2016
It has had this status since 1994
Their programs include: (excuse the uppercase, it is copied from site)
1. PROVIDE EMERGENCY SHELTER FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
2. PROVIDE DROP IN SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
3. PROVIDE OUTREACH SUPPORT SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND FEMALE YOUTH
4. PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR TENANTS TO ENABLE THEM TO DEVELOP AND CARRY OUT PLANS FOR A GREATER DEGREE OF INDEPENDENCE AND STABILITY
6 positions reporting compensation under $40,000
4 positions reporting compensation between $40,000 to under $80,000
Employed 23 part-time employees
Total compensation for part time employees = $579,804
Total compensation of part and full time = $940,642
Total expenditures = $1,249,327
———————————————————
Total revenues = $1,359,770
Revenues from province = 1,211,250
From municipality = $22,369
From receipted gifts = $31,534
From rental of building = $49,598
—————————————————–
Main asset (buildings + land) = $1,379,841
Since it provides mainly services rather than goods, many professional type services, it has a high payroll portion of its operating expenses.
The site does not include any info on volunteer workers or donated goods other than the receipted gifts info.
Go, thanks very much.
Obviously the peanut gallery did not let off enough steam on Free For All Friday.
After all this rhetoric who went for the cold walk? HB sure has a lot of websites on hand, must have a lot of free time or does not work. Internet researchers do not always provide the true facts………
Stuck in basement, mom won’t let her out, oh me tears………….
All my time is free time . I paid for it by hard work and perseverance., with the equally hard work of my better half .
As we entered the Trump age, more and more people are learning that “true facts” to one person are “alternate facts” to another.
Without someone looking at a fact, it remains a fact. It is the more the individual’s point of view which distorts the fact.
Is it a fact that the sun rose this morning in PG and the night sky turned to a daylight sky?
Or did the earth rotate in its orbit around the sun and it just looked like the sun was “rising”?
Guaranteed income ? Think it’s not coming . In one of the civilized countries in the world it’s already here . Search Finland guaranteed income .
The Swiss voted it down recently.
Yes, the Swiss recently rejected the guaranteed annual income idea in a national referendum.
It would have some serious drawbacks if it was to be funded from taxation, as was proposed there, and also in Finland. And elsewhere. Both PEI and Ontario are currently examining trying to set up schemes funded that way. The benefits, if any, are likely to be few and far between.
The basic problem is that trying to fund a guaranteed annual income that way, through taxation, is simply an attempt to re-distribute something which is already insufficient in its totality ~ ‘money’ itself.
There is currently no mechanism to ensure that there is always a proper nexus between ‘price values’ of goods and services EXPRESSED in money, and actual ‘money’ in the hands of the public sufficient in its totality to fully liquidate those ‘price values’. Without that FIRST, guaranteed income schemes funded from taxation will soon fail.
I did the search. Started in January of this year. Participants receive €560 (US$587) a month. 2,000 citizens are getting it. It is meant for those without employment. It is a trial run.
Sure looked different to me when I looked up the details. Nothing to write home about, especially when one considers the cost of living in Finland.
Compare that to the welfare system in Canada, for instance.
Switzerland was proposing more than that per week.
Am I missing something here? Please let me know what it is.
One addition to the above. If they find work, they will not lose that guaranteed income.
Likely initially meant for individuals who can get work but tends to not be steady work.
The Canadian government conducted a ‘basic income’ experiment decades ago in the Dauphin, Manitoba area. People there were paid an augmentation to their earned incomes, to bring them up to a pre-determined higher level, just to see what would happen. Whether they’d all come down with ‘lazyitis’, take the free money and sit back and enjoy it while it lasted, or just how it would affect them.
What was found was that didn’t happen to any extent at all. People continued working, just as they had been, only their standard of living increased because of the additional income. This enabled greater consumption, which led to increased employment because of greater demand for products they could then more easily afford.
At some point in time, as Hahaha has pointed out previously, there will have to be some form of augmentations paid to earned incomes of those working, and some means of paying “the wages of the machine” to those who’ve been displaced that way as technology continually advances. Otherwise we’re going to find ourselves in a spot where we can’t come anyways close to being able to sell everything we produce.
That is the downside of the “efficiency machine” otherwise known as Capitalism. The Capitalist drive is always to increase efficiency by producing more and more goods with less and less people and inputs, while still requiring all of that “efficiently” produced output to be somehow magically absorbed by people who are no longer required in the production process.
A system like that is unsustainable. Eventually, it will have to adopt changes that allow surplus labour to absorb all of that production or it will collapse on itself. Right now, the “Captains of Industry” running the system are relying on workers in other countries to absorb the production that their own domestic demand cannot absorb. However, every other country, including developing ones, are increasingly adopting automation to remain competitive and to ensure that most of the benefits of production go to a few owners.
The warped Capitalist system will finally collapse when there are few to no workers available to absorb production in any country.
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