The Sunrise House Youth Emergency Shelter in Grande Prairie has received $3,842 as part of the Home Depot’s annual Orange Door Project. The funds, raised entirely through the Grande Prairie location, will go directly to programs currently in place at the shelter.
Executive Director Tanya Wald says they will likely go specifically towards life skills for interested youth.
“Some of our kids who are looking to live independently, we work with them to make sure how they understand how to take care of a home,” she says. “These funds really go directly into those skills programs, very hands-on, front line work that our staff is doing with our youth.”
Wald says, in addition to the funds, the ability to fundraise with a big box store like Home Depot allows for heightened awareness not only of the programs in use but also the need for the shelter in the first place.
“Maybe they’ve never heard of Sunrise House; maybe they didn’t realize that youth homelessness was even a thing in Grande Prairie or in our region.”
Wald says COVID-19, as with most things, has changed how things are normally done during the campaign, but she says, thanks in large part to the effort of employees, it went off without a hitch.
“We were not able to have a physical presence in the store in the same way, so we were just really grateful that the store associates were willing to take this on and promote it without us being there,” she adds.
In all, more than $160,000 was raised for not-for-profit agencies across Alberta as part of the most recent Orange Door Project.