Fundraising for our city’s most vulnerable

The Coldest Night of the Year event will be taking place this weekend. So far, the fundraiser by Streets Alive Mission has raised close to $50,000 with a $70,000 goal. Jennifer Lepko, the Director of Fund Development for Streets Alive, says there are a number of items the organization will be able purchase to help out our city’s most vulnerable.

“We raise these dollars because we want to be able to provide people a warm place to be, a place to even just warm up. A warm cup of coffee, socks, boots, coats. A snack to keep their belly warm. Those types of things. In our last cold snap we had a number of days where we had volunteers bringing in big vats of soup. Things like that, nice warm soup. But just to meet those basic needs. That’s where those dollars go to.”

Lepko says Streets Alive spends up to $75,000 a month if they had to purchase everything for people to come out of the cold. There are currently over 175 walkers and 32 teams registered for the charity walk.