5 Days for the Homeless Video Interview: Learn About This Great Initiative
I interviewed Allie da Silva, who is a VP of the Commerce Students’ Societies’ Community Outreach Portfolio. Her team is putting on a month-long event called 5 Days for the Homeless to raise money for homeless youth in Victoria.
Her team was inspired by the actions of university students nation-wide and wanted to help here in Victoria too, thus it being UVic’s first time participating (virtually this year but keep an eye out for the future).
The UVic 5 Days Team
Check out my interview below or refer to the question transcript to learn more!
Question Transcript
1. What is 5 Days for the Homeless?
5 days for the Homeless was started in Edmonton in 2007, and it’s actually a national fundraiser, that all across Canada to raise awareness and funds for homelessness in Canada. This year it will be UVic’s first time participating.
2. What kind of events are there/ how can people help out or get involved?
There are quite a few things on the go. One of the key ones that I’m really excited about is for the week of March 7th to 13th; we’re doing a polar bear plunge so we’re encouraging anyone that wants to take the plunge to do so. If they send us a photo or a video of them doing it, the CSS will donate $5 for every plunge up to $1,000, so that’s really exciting.
Another exciting thing that we’re doing is a Victoria local sampler card, which will be awesome. We’ve paired with a bunch of local businesses to offer discounts for the week of March 14 to 20th. That’s another awesome way to get involved and also give back to the local businesses in Victoria as well.
3. How does the charity KEYS help the homeless?
The Kiwanis Emergency Youth Shelter is an organization that offers housing essentials and support programs for youth ages 13 to 18 in unsafe situations.
All of our funds will be directly benefiting that program to help provide youth with a steady place to live and help them transition out of experiencing homelessness.
All funds raised will be going towards this group and how we will be making our primary impact on our community. Additionally, we aim to raise awareness and plan to address some of the stigmas around homelessness.
I have shared the link to Allie’s 5 Days team’s GoFundMe page in case you’d like to help out 🙂
Thanks for viewing! If you would like to learn more, participate, or donate, here are some links:
