More than you’d initially think, that’s for sure! A while back I wrote about the beginnings of the Metro Vancouver RESA Chapter, which is well underway now. Read the post here if you missed it. We’ve had 3 meetings so far and our attendance numbers have been doubling each month; we’re off to a great start and the enthusiasm and ideas that flow during the meetings has been amazing!
As a group, we decided that a priority for our Chapter is community involvement. I immediately thought of Louise Edwards, whom I wrote about early this year. Remember Louise? Read the post here if you missed it. Louise is also known as the Godmother of the Downtown Eastside and has spent the last 25 years of her life helping the women who live and work in the area. Many of them are street workers, struggle with addiction and suffer from mental illness. There are resources in place to assist but funding is always short and often the hotels and shelters go without the bare necessities. Like stoves and freezers, for example.
I have had the pleasure of keeping in touch with Louise Edwards during the last year and have donated many an item, mostly overflow items that my clients need to get rid of. I called Louise a few weeks ago and told her that our Chapter would love to talk to her and figure out a way that we can partner with her and with her assistance, identify high need families or projects that really need some help. Our Chapter’s thinking is this: we all work with home owners who ALWAYS have furniture, clothes, etc to get rid of when they’re preparing their homes for sale. We also all know of painters, general contractors, furniture suppliers, etc and figured that if we all pooled our resources together, we could make a major difference in the women of the downtown eastside’s lives.
Louise attended our last RESA meeting last week and her work really resonated with all members of our Chapter. I looked around the room as Louise explained what she does and how she does it and she had every person’s undivided attention. She told us about a hotel that was recently purchased by the government to provide shelter and food for women in need. It houses 30 women at a time and feeds them daily as a result of donations and large quantities of food that Louise brings in every two weeks. Currently, in the common area of the hotel, they have one small dining table with a few chairs, a kitchen that has a small sink, a stove that hardly works and a deep freeze that just broke down. The staff cook meals for 30 people in these conditions and without the freezer, they are very limited in what they can prepare and what Louise can bring in.
Our Chapter will be working closely with this hotel and will be finalizing their ‘wish list’ items later this week. As it stands right now, they are in need of a stove, card tables/small dining tables, chairs, book shelves, lighting, art for the walls and storage for canned goods. I will finalize the list shortly and welcome you to contact me directly if you’d like to get involved.
Meeting Louise Edwards was a life changing event; when you learn about the stories of how people have come to live in the downtown eastside and the obstacles they face on a daily basis, it really shifts your perspective. There is power in numbers and I welcome you to join us in making a difference in the lives of women who really need it.
Heather, if all businesses did as you are doing, giving to those less fortunate, this world would be a much better place.
Thanks, Julie. When we all began brainstorming all of the contacts we have between the 15 of us, we knew we were onto something pretty exciting!