It was an exciting and meaningful day on Saturday November 19, as Lotus Light Charity Society held one of their largest events of the year; the 21st annual Winter Charity Drive (WCD) 2016 at the Vancouver temple.
Our Winter Charity Drive’s mission is to help the homeless, the impoverished and the vulnerable, through the cold winter season. With the temperature dropping rapidly, our event’s mission is critical at a time when it’s most needed. Each year, the LLCS Winter Charity Drive gives out hundreds of new sleeping bags and winter care packs to people in need from Vancouver Downtown Eastside, Burnaby and Abbotsford. Our winter care packs include personal hygiene items and winter garments such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, moisturizing lotions, scarfs, mittens, raincoats, as well a variety of non-perishable food items and snacks.
As with the previous Winter Charity Drives, we are greatly honoured to have a large cast of guests to attend and participate in the presentation and street distribution of the event. Our guests this year include Vajra Master Lian Tzi, President of Lotus Light Charity Society (Vancouver), Vancouver City Councillor, Dr. Kerry Jang, Vancouver Police Department Homeless Outreach Team, Paramedics from BC Ambulance Services, and represents from other homeless supporting organizations.
Joining us this year for the first time, we were fortunate to invite 8 store managers of Save-On-Foods supermarkets! We are proud to have Save-On-Foods as our supporter of WCD for the last two years, donating hundreds of boxed juices and fresh fruits each year. We were excited to finally meet our generous donors in person. This year, Save-On-Foods went the extra mile to prepare and help distribute 500 fresh sandwiches of various choices, in addition to their juice and fruits. This allowed us to incorporate our monthly Meals for the Homeless event with our Winter Charity Drive for the first time.
With record breaking weeks of rain since October, we were blessed to have a dry and non windy day on November 19, with even a few sunny breaks. This year’s WCD proceeded smoothly and concluded successfully with a total of 30,000 items given out. A total of 1000 sleeping bags and 1000 winter care packs were handed out to people on the street and received by community representatives of the various participating organizations.
