White Rock’s Coldest Night of the Year fundraiser is set to kick off this evening with a virtual opening ceremony.
The annual fundraiser – which supports Sources’ homelessness services and rent-bank program – was forced to go virtual for 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with participants encouraged to complete either a two- or five-km walk close to home and “with their household or safe bubble, following the recommendations of our Provincial Health Officer and local health authorities.”
Those walks will be completed between today and Sunday’s closing ceremonies, which will also be virtual. Today’s opening event will be live-streamed from the event’s Facebook page, as well as the Coldest Night of the Year website, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Closing ceremonies are planned for 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
Prior to this year’s event, organizers set a goal to raise $120,000 but with hours to spare, participants and their teams have exceeded that goal by a considerable margin – on Friday morning, the website showed that $172,016 had been raised.
In total, 352 walkers and 55 teams have signed up to take part.
For the last few weeks, some of the top fundraising teams have been engaged in a friendly competition to raise the most money. As of Friday, the Sources team, called The Virtually Virtuous – led by CEO David Young – was in top spot, with $30,317 in pledges collected.
In second place is the White Rock Pride Society, which has raised $15,715, while the Rotary Club of White Rock had raised $14,520 by Friday morning.
editorial@peacearchnews.com
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