File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Jill Sperling

Supporting Homeless Youth

Camp Out to End Youth Homelessness breaks fundraising record prior to event

Dec 11, 2020 | 3:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Camp Out to End Youth Homelessness event is taking place Friday night (Dec. 11).

Participants will camp in cardboard boxes or tents, setting up in their own backyards to experience the hardship of homelessness for just one night.

The event is a fundraiser in support of A Way Home Kamloops, which seeks to find housing for youth in need. The Camp Out has experienced incredible challenges this year, both with the pandemic and also the passing of A Way Home Kamloops Executive Director Katherine McParland one week before the event.

In her absence Kamloops has stepped up to carry on McParland’s mission of eradicating youth homelessness.

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“We’ve just been so appreciative and so grateful for what everybody has done,” said Camp Out committee member Patti Phillips. “Katherine was so kind, but so tenacious and she would just be over the moon of how well that we’re doing.”

Phillips says the event has already raised more than $75,000, with more donations yet to come in.

“Last year, I believe we were at $55,000 or $57,000, which we were really thrilled with,” Phillips said. “This year we were thinking we might get to $30,000. So to be over $75,000 already, we’re just blown away.”

This year’s Camp Out will be the second for City Councillor Mike O’Reilly, who previously participated in 2018.

“It was very, very cold in the cardboard box that I had, waking up on a very regular basis, every half hour, 45 minutes trying to get comfortable again,” O’Reilly recalls. “Not having any padding underneath you is difficult and we ended up getting a bit of a windstorm in the night, so most of the cardboard boxes ended up blowing over. It certainly was an unpleasant evening overall.”

For O’Reilly, the discomfort of the night gives him a glimpse into what those experiencing homelessness have to endure.

“This is my one day a year to put myself into a homeless person’s shoes and see what they’re going through,” he said. “I can tell you I have not heard… I haven’t gotten one text message, one email, one message from one homeless person about their concerns about how they’re being treated. So for me, this really just provides a little bit of perspective for me when I’m making those tough decisions around the council table.”

O’Reilly joins the more than 50 other participants this year, each person in their own yard of living room in accordance with pandemic guidelines.

“We were planning on doing it at McDonald Park as well as virtual and as we all know, whoever has been doing events this year, we’ve had to go complete virtual,” Phillips said.

While the event takes on a new form this year, the spirit of the Camp Out is unchanged. Phillips says Katherine would be proud.

“Katherine would be in absolute tears, because I know how important it was for her. I can tell you right now that she’s looking down and she’s saying ‘thank-you’ to everyone.”