Calgary North has Strong Helping Hands

Submitted by CPC Calgary North

If you were to take a poll in the bustling, booming city of Calgary, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t want to see progress on the issue of homelessness. And Progress stepped forward to do just that – with five years of hard work culminating in the most successful Helping Hands campaign ever in 2006.

Helping Hands was developed by the Progress Club of Calgary North to raise awareness and support for two of Calgary’s front-line homeless agencies – the Calgary Drop-In Centre and the Salvation Army Community Services program.

The Drop-In Centre offers people that are trying to get off the street a safe, non-judgemental environment that provides food, shelter, medical assistance, counselling and employment services. The Salvation Army is well-known for their community work around the world, but in Calgary they are focussed on helping individuals and families who require food, clothes, counselling and assistance to those who need support in getting back on their feet.

“I think there’s a misnomer out there that we, the community, can solve the homelessness problem when, in fact, what really needs to happen is simply empowering those less fortunate to solve the problem themselves,” said Calgary North Helping Hands chairperson Mark Kotris. “One of the valuable lessons we’ve learned in running this campaign is that people without a home don’t expect us to solve their problems, but they sure could use a strong set of Helping Hands to support them as they fight their own personal battles.

“And that’s what we do.”

The Helping Hands campaign partnered with Calgary area Mark’s Work Wearhouse locations and two prominent radio stations to promote the campaign that saw Calgary and area residents donate cash, clothing, personal items and children’s Christmas gifts. The program started at the end of November and ran right to Christmas.

The generosity of the donors was overwhelming. “In 2005, we had 72,000 lbs of clothing and gifts donated plus over $12,000,” said Kotris. “For this campaign, we were swamped from the beginning. In the end, we handed over 100,000 lbs of clothing and gifts plus over $20,000 to the two agencies.”

Kotris said the organizers were particularly pleased with the amount of new clothing donated this year. “We got our fair share of hand-me-downs, but we also got a lot of brand new stuff with the tags still on,” said Kotris with his trademark wide grin. “It was amazing. People were going to Mark’s, buying brand new steel-toed boots and work pants and winter jackets and then just handing them over to Helping Hands.”

As always, it was a team effort: Mark’s donated lots of items and then discounted other items purchased for the program; the radio stations (JACK FM and the FAN 960) did there part with on-air promotion; the Progress club members, family and friends helped sort all the items to divide fairly based on needs between the two agencies; and the agencies worked to fulfill their clients needs and wants.

“We never started out thinking we were going to solve the issue,” said Kotris, “but we did think we could lend some people a good helping hand. We certainly did that and I know for a fact there’s a lot of people in a better place today than they were back before Christmas.

“That’s progress.”