Since the Homeless Action Committee was formed a year ago, it has struggled to find a constant flow of income to stock the more than 170 food hampers it provides to people in the city that are homeless, couch surfing or living in unstable conditions.
Organizer Wendy Bohn said the group has had to do extensive fundraising. “There’s a lot of pride and a lot of work that goes into that,” she said.
Starting this month, the latest money making idea for the group will get off the ground. You could say they’re turning themselves into an “on-call bottle haul” team. Anyone who doesn’t want to take their bottles to the depot, can give Bohn a call at 250-719-7859 and she’ll organize a team to come and take them away for you. They’ve already had some successful bottle drives with businesses in the Dawson Creek area.
Thanks to a total of four large bottle donations from Somerville-Aecon and Encana Corp., they’ve been able to raise about $5,500 and rely on continuing the partnership with those two natural gas industry players. Bohn said she has a standing agreement with Somerville-Aecon to collect all of their recyclable bottles and cans until they leave twown sometime in the New Year and that Encana will call anytime they need bottles hauled away from their 300-man camp on the Braden Road.
She’s trying to make arrangements with other local businesses to do monthly pickups.
As the winter hits, many of the homeless people in the area are contemplating making the journey south. But Bohn doesn’t anticipate that the demand for food hampers will slow and even if it does, she wants to be prepared when they come back in the summer because this is where their family and friends are. 90 per cent of the funds will go directly into the food hamper project, while the rest will go to the homeless people who help her collect the bottles.
For Bohn, involving people affected by homelessness in the fundraising is important. “They are shocked to learn that there are a lot of good people in Dawson Creek who want to help the homeless,” Bohn said. “They say ‘people do care.’ That’s what our homeless volunteers are going away with (that) sense of being cared about.”
To read the full story, visit http://www.dawsoncreekmirror.ca/dawson-creek/homeless-group-hopes-for-steady-income-from-on-call-bottle-haul-service-1.2392308.