Got Hats? ChangeEverything.ca success story

Snowed in and working from home last Monday, I found myself shivering even though I was inside my warm home wearing down slippers. My mailbox was full of messages from friends talking about what they were going to do on their snow day - the buzz was all about toboggans and renting videos. As fun as the idea of a snow day was, I couldn’t stop thinking about some of the people in our community who are less fortunate: the ones without homes. I thought about collecting some clothes and blankets from my house and bringing them to local shelters and quickly realized that I couldn’t drive my 20 year old car with its all-season tires anywhere. I was stuck. It felt pretty awful to want to do something to help but to have barrier like this get in the way. I imagined that others were probably having a similar experience – and since I wasn’t about to be stopped, I decided to use ChangeEverything.ca as it was designed – to make some changes happen.

1 blog posting = 3 volunteers = over 4,000 items donated to local shelters in 48 hours.

It all started with one blog posting. It seemed to me that there had to be others who wanted to donate to shelters but had no way of transporting things either. So I wrote this blog post sharing my vision to get a car donated and do a round of collections to transport warm things to local shelters. Immediate response was positive. I contacted the Cooperative Auto Network (CAN) to ask them to provide a vehicle to make this happen.

The moment I got confirmation from CAN that they would in fact provide a vehicle, it was time to let the media know. Almost immediately, I started doing interviews, first the Globe and Mail and then The Province. Right after the 6pm photo shoot for The Province, I received a call from Global TV asking if they could follow us around while we did our pick-ups. Global’s story ran on the 11pm news and then again the next morning and at noon, inspiring others to get involved. The Fairmont Waterfront caught wind of all this and used ChangeEverything.ca to connect with new user Phil, who had also just learned about the site. Phil was immediately moved to action, spending his Wednesday evening picking up donations from all over the Lower Mainland. We estimate that over 4,000 articles of warmth were delivered to local shelters in a 48 hour period.

And Phil is hitting the streets again tomorrow! If you have any donations you would like him to pick up, please contact him.

Other members of the ChangeEverything.ca community have branched out with initiatives of their own. Grassmonkeyz is collecting items for the homeless to give away on Christmas day. While LocaMichelle is doing a drive for supplies to donate to local animal shelters.

I am excited to be a part of ChangeEverything.ca, it felt so good to have the site as a tool to make Got Hats happen. I hope that you feel empowered to use the site to turn your inspiration into action, too. There is a powerful community growing here. We can make things happen, we already have.

-Kate, Moderator, ChangeEverything.ca

What people are saying…

“I saw your story on Global this afternoon and raced to my computer to check this site out. I am so excited to have found this. It is exactly what I've been looking for.”

“I just wanted to express my thanks and admiration again for your initiative thanks for inspiring me to do something.”

“What an amazing and great idea.”

“I saw your story last night - and I'm so glad I did! What a great idea and what a wonderful website! I just wanted to say thanks for turning me on to this…”

“I'd like to commend you for taking charge - the story inspired me to also try to do something for the homeless during this exceptionally cold season.”

And from the shelter who received many of our donations,

“…(I) didn’t get the information that you had been around on Wednesday night until this morning: it was a wonderful surprise! It’s people like you and your friends who make a difference one step at a time, and who are catalysts for change in general. We and the people we serve are grateful”