News

We hosted our Fifth Annual GivingTuesday Shelter Gala and it couldn’t have gone any better! In fact, it was the biggest Shelter Gala fundraiser ever! Collectively, you gave:

over $89,300!

That means we’ve exceeded our Shelter Gala fundraising goal by $14,300! 

We couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you! Every dollar given supports our life-saving services and systems change work in the community.

Thanks to your gifts, we were able to celebrate the amazing residents at our shelter and our DTES neighbours. It’s not every day that community members can enjoy a fancy meal, so we took great pleasure in providing a gourmet lunch from our food truck at Gore and Hastings to folks in the neighbourhood!

We later treated 51 shelter residents to a special three-course meal as part of our evening celebration. Instead of shelter residents standing in a line to get food, staff had the opportunity to serve up three five-star dishes right to their tables. The biggest hit of the night was the coconut bread pudding with crème anglaise—many seconds were had! Each resident was also treated to a gift bag of goodies, and enjoyed a showing of Christmas movies, and festive music.

*We chose not to photograph our community members in order to respect their privacy and autonomy, in keeping with ethical practices of community engagement in the Downtown Eastside.

It’s Thank You Thursday and our list of thank yous is long because we couldn’t have put on this event without the help and support of so many amazing organizations and individuals!

Thank you to Odlum Brown and Goldbeck Recruiting for returning as Shelter Gala Partners—and to Dakeryn Industries and Gordon Food Service for becoming new Shelter Gala Partners this year! We’re so grateful for your support of our mission and vision. A special thanks to the folks from Odlum Brown who volunteered at our food truck lunch service on the day. We appreciate your hands-on participation—thank you for serving the DTES community for GivingTuesday!

Our gratitude goes to Chef Billy Nguyen for returning as our celebrity guest chef for the 4^th year in a row. Thank you for preparing your amazing kale salad, braised pork cheeks with polenta, and coconut bread and butter pudding with crème anglaise for shelter residents to enjoy. It was also a delight to serve braised pork cheeks with polenta for the DTES community at lunch.

We also want to thank Sassy Bakes for donating 53 custom-made FIRST UNITED sugar cookies for shelter residents to enjoy. This sweet treat was the perfect snack to add to the gift bags.

Thank you to Table Sponsors Robert Allan Ltd. and Gilmore Park United Church Board, and David Nairne + Associates. Thank you also to our Anonymous Evening Sponsors.

We’d like to recognize the staff who worked hard to help make this event happen. Thank you to Kitchen, Spiritual Care, Shelter, Community Program and Development staff!

It was such an honour to host our GivingTuesday Shelter Gala for the fifth year in a row. It fills us with great joy to see shelter residents enjoy an extra special evening celebration, just for them.

And a heartfelt thank you to everyone who chipped in to make this event a huge success! We’re blown away and continue to be inspired by the generosity of this supportive community. We hope you feel inspired by the impact you’re having in the DTES.