Homeless youths in and around Edmonton will soon have bags of hope thanks to some $17,000 raised by St. Albert Catholic students.
École Secondaire Sainte Marguerite d’Youville students presented a small mountain of shampoo, toothbrushes, and other basic necessities to Catholic Social Services (CSS) June 15 in support of the organization’s Safe House program. The bags are part of the roughly $17,478 in cash and donated items raised by Greater St. Albert Catholic Students this year for the shelter.
GSACRD regularly does district-wide fundraising campaigns for CSS, with students coming up with various campaigns (e.g. Break-A-Rule Day, throwing pies at teachers) to encourage donations, said Colin Loiselle, the district’s religious education consultant.
Students in ESSMY’s social justice club wanted to do something more tangible, said teacher Louise Shervey. Instead of just raising money for the Safe House backpack program, they wanted to fill actual backpacks.
Shervey said club members Katherine Benke, Rosa Hamdan, and Izabella Luszczek spearheaded a backpack campaign at ESSMY over the last few months, running contests and challenging each classroom to fill at least two backpacks with supplies from a list of items commonly needed at Safe House. The school ended up with about 20 backpacks of essentials plus many boxes of toothbrushes, gift cards, stuffed animals, and other items.
Home in a bag
Safe House is a shelter program for high-risk female and transgender youths aged 13 to 21, said CSS spokesperson Gerald Sseguya. About 150 to 250 Edmonton-area clients visit it each year.
“These are youth who have no home and have no support,” he said, and who may be vulnerable to sex trafficking.
Benke said youths at Safe House may have been forced to flee abusive homes or be at risk of getting into drugs or gangs.
“It was eye-opening to realize that people around me could be dealing with [these issues] and I would have no idea.”
The backpacks contain practical items such as toothpaste and bus tickets as well as books or other comfort items, Benke said. The backpack can be used to carry belongings — important if you don’t have a home — and can be folded up for easy storage.
The items in these backpacks are the ones most often requested by Safe House clients, Sseguya said.
“When you look at that backpack there, it is a home,” he said, as it contains everything a person needs to start their day.
Hamdan said this project helped her put a face to the problem of poverty, and appreciate how prevalent it is around St. Albert.
“This project gave us an opportunity to realize that even though we are young, we can make a difference and we can work for change in our community.”
Hamdan and Benke said they hope to organize a similar fundraiser next year.
Visit www.cssalberta.ca/Our-Services/Government-Referral for details on the Safe Home program.
