The Coldest Night of the Year is a winterrific family-friendly walk to raise money for local charities serving people experiencing hurt, hunger, and homelessness. Team up, walk, and fundraise! It’s cold out there... but there’s no place like home.
ABOUT SOARING EAGLE SUPPORT SOCIETY (SESS)
Soaring Eagle Support Society (SESS) is a registered charity in Whitecourt, Alberta that provides services for our vulnerable citizens.
Our goal is:
• to provide direct supports - or be the bridge to other community supports - to those who have been disqualified, traumatized or abandoned by traditional services and do not have the level of skills needed to thrive and be connected to their community
• to provide supported housing for the ‘hard-to house.’
Soaring Eagle officially opened its doors in downtown Whitecourt in June 2020 as a free day-time drop-in Support Centre for vulnerable individuals. SESS provided a safe, welcoming, respectful space for individuals to receive services, including: washrooms, laundry facilities, showers, bag lunches, snacks, water, coffee, telephone, internet, computers, rest and meeting areas, mailing address, document storage, Income Tax preparation, I.D. procurement and advocacy. This Centre proved to be especially needed during the Covid-19 Pandemic when most of the community facilities and supports were not accessible. SESS averaged 20 drop-in clients daily and increased their active client support files from 20 – 150 over eight months.
Soaring Eagle is aware that lack of appropriate housing has always been the challenge for most of the individuals we serve. To that end, we made the decision to change our focus from drop-in services to primarily providing housing for ‘hard to house’ individuals - as well as Community Navigation on an outreach basis. We leased a local motel – now called Eagle’s Nest - to provide short-term supportive accommodation.
Eagle’s Nest provides support services as needed to the residents including access to food, medication management, in-house lay-counselling, individual support plans, supported referrals, advocacy and all “Outreach” services that are provided to the community.
As well as housing, Soaring Eagle provides Outreach Services to individuals in the community which includes:
- Access to showers and laundry
- Access to lunches and emergency food and emergency clothing
- Computer, Internet and Telephone access
- Outreach advocacy (including referrals and peer to peer addiction & mental health supports)
- Housing Navigator – to assist with housing challenges, housing advocacy and applications in the community
- Court advocacy
- ID program (obtain identification for vulnerable citizens)
- CRA Tax-filing program (filing yearly taxes)
- Commissioner of Oaths
- Mental Health Animator – partnering with the Rural Mental Health Association
Coldest Night of the Year
It is our goal to work together with our local municipalities, agencies and businesses to provide a solution to homelessness and the lack of appropriate housing in our communities - especially for those who are hard-to-house.
The funds raised from CONY will go a long way to supporting these vulnerable individuals
Homelessness impacts everyone.
From the costs of emergency shelters, to institutional health and psychiatric services and the criminal justice system, to the individual physical and mental health impact on every homeless person, the causes and effects of homelessness cost all Canadians dearly.
Solving homelessness makes sense.
Not only are we saving money,
we are also
doing the right thing.
Start and end in the Home Hardware parking lot
Start and end at Home Hardware parking lot. Mid point rest stop will be at St. Joseph's Parish parking lot.
There will be a rest stop on the 5km walk at St. Joseph Parish's parking lot - 5538 Mink Creek Road.
Jeremy Watson Outreach Advocate
Toll Free 1.877.743.3413 / Phone 519.603.2250
Email info@cnoy.org