Making it Home – Textile Art Display

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 – Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Oct 9 & 10 10am – 5pm and Homelessness Awareness Week: Oct 15 & 16 10am – 5pm Oct 17 Meet the Quilters 2pm – 4pm

Quilters Create Art to Raise Money for Dawn to Dawn: Action on Homelessness

The North Island Quilters for Community Awareness (NIQCA) have created a collection of 34 individual textile art pieces – quilted art panels – and donated the entire work to Dawn to Dawn: Action on Homelessness Society. The pieces, collectively appraised at over $23,000, are on display at the Comox Valley Art Gallery.

Over 20 individual quilters, some of the most talented in the Comox Valley and North Island, contributed to the collection created around the theme “Making it Home”. The pieces will be auctioned in February 2010 by Dawn to Dawn to raise money in support of their efforts to house the homeless within the Valley.

Many of the quilters and Dawn to Dawn Board Members will be at the Gallery on the last day of Homelessness Awareness Week. Raffle tickets will also be available for a Queen size quilt by Marie Trimmer valued at over $3,000 and specifically donated to help Dawn to Dawn defray the cost of the raffle and auction.

Dawn to Dawn`: Action on Homelessness, formed in the spring of 2007 by a group of community-minded individuals is a not-for-profit charitable status society in the Comox Valley. The Society’s mandate is to provide support to their program participants to help each to move toward their own level of independence while providing welcoming and low barrier housing, health care and support services for the homeless and those at imminent risk of becoming homeless.

Though the participation, leadership and leasehold commitment of the Dawn to Dawn Society, we have taken the fore in this critical community mission. The Dawn to Dawn low barrier housing for the homeless inventory has been developed by entering into long-term lease agreements with Comox Valley landlords, and then subletting bedrooms in the leased stock to those persons in need. The room rent charged by Dawn to Dawn matches the shelter support allowance available to persons in need from the BC Ministry of Housing and Social Development.

With Dawn to Dawn taking on the direct obligations of a long term lease, housing can be secured from traditional landlords and rooms made available to the homeless in a supportive and mentored environment.

Since program inception in June of this year, eight two bedroom apartments have been leased to over 16 previously homeless persons housed- men, women and children – four have “graduated”.

To date, Dawn to Dawn has raised all operating funds, beyond the shelter allowances paid by our tenant/clients, from local service clubs and foundations and has been the honoured recipient of many donations from private individuals, church and community groups.

In addition to the housing initiative, Dawn to Dawn has launched a critical support service to the homeless and those at risk – the CARE-A-VAN mobile health care unit.

Occupying a core position within the service mandate of the society, the principal objective of the mobile health care initiative is to provide accessible low barrier and welcoming services to homeless people and those at risk – people who can’t or typically won’t go to fixed-site clinics.

Operating from a motor home purposely converted and the use of which has been donated by the owner and staff of SunWest RV the CARE-A-VAN Mobile Health Outreach unit provides healthcare services directly to the streets, serving the hardest to reach individuals.

The program is intended to build bridges with individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness – those persons without resources or advocates. This approach has the added benefit of cost containment – providing markedly less expensive primary care alternatives than emergency rooms.

Dawn to Dawn’s Mobile Health Outreach unit, operating in the evening hours at various locations throughout the community, will often represent the first and sometimes the only health care provider that a homeless individual may see. For management and logistical reasons, initial service has been directed to the Courtenay-Comox area. Within a year the service area and hours of operation will grow to encompass other areas within the Valley.

Some fourteen medical practitioners have volunteered to staff the mobile clinic.

Dawn to Dawn seeks to raise $100,000 annually from within the community.

http://harbourliving.ca/event/making-it-home-textile-art-display/