Coldest night of the year
Written by Cassidy Hartmann
February 22, 2023
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As the coldest days of the Canadian winter approach, most people cope by thinking about fun winter activities, like skiing and skating, and I think about how I get to come back home to a cup of hot chocolate and a roaring fireplace. What doesn’t cross my mind is that there are thousands of people in Ottawa without these same luxuries. People my age, adults, children, and seniors are driven from their homes, fighting food instability, feeling isolated, or taking shelter wherever they can find it.
It’s cold out there.
On February 25th, Canadians will leave the comfort of their warm homes and walk through the sub zero darkness to experience a fraction of what it's like for the thousands of people in Ottawa without a home to return to each night. The Coldest Night of the Year Event is a family-friendly fundraiser in which anyone can sign up, fundraise, and walk 2-5 km in the cold, to contribute to a local charity and to better understand the struggles of those facing homelessness in one of the World’s coldest capitals.
You can sign up for free to fundraise and walk for the Coldest Night of the Year event at https://cnoy.org/register. You can join the pre-existing JMSS team or start a new one with your family or friends. You can also donate to a walker or team at https://cnoy.org/donate. 100% of proceeds from the Nepean event will go to a local Ottawa organization, Ottawa Innercity Missionaries, who have been “helping people survive, by providing cold, hungry, hurting and isolated adults veterans, and youth with warm clothes, food, companionship and care without judgement” for over 30 years. OIM has a variety of services, promoting survival and creating a support system for people experiencing homelessness in Ottawa.
“I walk for all the cold and hungry people I meet every day that just need someone to come alongside and care.” Cam Whalen, Ottawa Innercity Missionaries’ Community Engagement Manager, explains while we discuss the Coldest Night of the Year event. He tells me the success story of a young woman named Grace, who came from a dysfunctional home and was facing discrimination in her community. Grace is one of the many reet-engaged youths who has found acceptance in the Ottawa Innercity Arts program, which supports people of all ages through weekly artistic expression. “Grace also grew to embrace being part of the OIM Work Skills program, learning valuable work and life skills” Cam tells me. He also excitedly reports that Grace has secured full time employment, thanks to the consistent support and opportunity provided to her by Ottawa Innercity youth programs and volunteers.
I think many of us take for granted the life that we have in Barrhaven. I know I do. There are at-risk youth in high school and younger who don’t have a warm, stable place to call home. Organizations like OIM, which you can directly support by donating to or walking for CNOY, are doing everything in their power to bring hope, safety, and stability into the people’s lives who need it most. Every week, OIM volunteers carry wagons filled with survival supplies through the streets of downtown Ottawa, visiting hundreds of homeless people, which they call their “street friends”, per night. They’re walking through the cold to help those at risk and experiencing homelessness, and on February 25th, so can you.
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