Shelter Box Canada

Posted by Vira Hughes 
on Mar 15, 2016
 
Tuesday's guest speaker, Director of Shelter Box Canada, Stephanie Christensen, pictured, ex Calgarian and Calgary Flames fan, flew in from Toronto to meet with the local Strathcona High School students about their highly successful fundraising bike-athon, which raised over $200,000 for Shelter Box Canada.
 
NEWS! - NEWS!
24-hour bike-a thon smashes records at Strathcona High School
 
 
Twelve hundred students raised almost half a million dollars for charity during a 24-hour bikeathon at Strathcona High School. The total of $449,000 raised for ShelterBox Canada beats last year's record of $352,000.
 
 
Stephanie Christensen
 
Kudos to Rose Marie, who managed to have her come to our club as well, to give us a presentation on what ShelterBox is doing throughout the world.
Our club has donated over $14,000 dollars to Shelter Box Canada over the last five years. The Shelter box  program provides boxes containing hi tech tents tailored to local weather conditions, water purification kits, blankets, mosquito nets, solar powered lights (a sample of which she tried to bring to show us, but was confiscated by airline security) and other essential living supplies, as needed, tailored to provide a temporary home for displaced families around the world.
This year alone, there have been 19.3 million people displaced due to natural disasters and another 59.5 million displaced due to conflict. They also provide shelter kits containing the tools and items needed to repair damaged homes and boxes containing all of the supplies needed to get up a school up and running. They work with local governments and the UN to provide these where and when they are needed. They have supplies and trained volunteers positioned around the world so that they can respond quickly as needed. ShelterBox is based in the UK and all of their boxes are packed there by volunteers. Shelter Box Canada raises over 1.4 to 2.0 million dollars each year. They are partners with Rotary International and very much appreciate our ongoing contributions.