More than 500 people took to the streets of Orillia Saturday for the 12th annual Coldest Night of the Year fundraising event for the Orillia Lighthouse.
The goal is to raise $200,000 and at 4 p.m. when the gathering commenced, it had reached 81 per cent of its goal, with $162,506 raised among 84 teams, 545 walkers, and 69 volunteers.
Organizers are confident they'll reach the goal by the time the campaign wraps up. The tally has been increasing moment by moment.
“Each day I’ve been watching it go up,” said Mary Silk, who has led the CFUW team for the past 10 years.
Silk has kept tallies of their totals each year and says that to date, her team has raised over $100,000 for the Lighthouse.
“I am very pleased to see that each year we get (new) people ... you never know who is going to join a team or who is going to donate,” said Silk.
Among this year's crew of volunteers was Jessie Miron, who moved to Orillia last October. The event hits home for him as he said he has experienced homelessness himself. Miron volunteered all day, setting up since noon and directing traffic on Queen street.
The event began again this year at the ECapital parking lot on West Street; it was moved outside to this location due to the number of people who gather.
Meagan Bianco, development director for The Lighthouse, attributes the growth of the event to a combination of word of mouth and physically seeing the need in the community grow.
“We recognize the need is greater than ourselves and people are feeling the need growing in their own lives,” she said, referencing the 100,000 meals served at the Lighthouse last year.
“People are wanting to participate and they are embracing how cold it is and they are still showing up and staying outside for the whole duration,” she said.
Angie Godfrey and Sumanpreet Kaur, Georgian College students, were touched by the growing need and volunteered for the first time this year.
Godfrey mentioned learning that many homeless people are applying for medical assistance In dying, “which is so sad,” she said.
As hundreds of people gathered, many remarked that Orillia boasts one of the strongest CNOY events across North America; you can see the rankings among locations online.
Charlotte Holloway, 12, has participated in the walk since she was four and was excited when she and her mom, Trish Holloway, watched the donations to their team surpass their $5,000 goal on Feb. 21.
“I just love how all the people are engaged. And I know that if I was ever without a home then the Lighthouse would help me,” Charlotte said.
She recruited a number of friends to join her for the walk by saying that “it’s for a good cause and it’s really fun.” Her team, Frost Force, consists of 14 walkers with 10 of them being under the age of 13.
Trish said she has no doubt the Lighthouse will achieve the $200,000 goal.
As partnerships and operations director at the Lighthouse, she noted that with the increased cost of living “it seems like donations could be down ... but I know that Orillia is so generous and we’re surprised every day. Someone is always making a donation,” she said.
“People working together can do wonderful things,” said Silk.
“We hope that it’s an event that everyone has fun at,” said Bianco.
Local businesses helped with that. This year, Brewery Bay gave out vegan wraps, Chic-fil-A provided sandwiches, Tim Hortons kept hot chocolate, tea, and coffee flowing, and Creative Nomad Studio served as a warming station.
“Orillia is really community focused and you can see year after year that they band together,” said Bianco.
She noted the diversity of people who participate is vast.
“It’s really hard to pinpoint a specific type of person who comes out for CNOY ... It’s that low barrier to entry and being able to come together as a community that appeals to all sorts of different people,” she said.
Despite the cold — it felt like around -13 degrees Celsius on Saturday evening — you could see happiness and pride among faces and hear it in the conversations as the walkers meandered through downtown.
Most were dedicated to the 5km trek, and as one 12-year-old Frost Force member noted, this year the extra snow is a big difference.
“That’s not what it’s about, though,” said the Lighthouse volunteer supervisor, Donna Godfrey, suggesting a strong sense of empathy for those who have no place to go in harsh winter weather.
The fundraising continues through to the end of March and can be accessed online here. On Feb. 26, Chick-fil-A is also hosting an event where a portion of the proceeds will go to the Orillia Lighthouse CNOY.