On Sunday, October 2, 2016, over 75 WeDoSomething-ers aged 2 to 72 took over Brasserie Melrose to FUNraise for outings, daycare services and educational programs offered by the Résidence YMCA du Québec to asylum seekers and refugees who are new to Canada.
We were joined by some of their former residents who are now new Canadians from Mexico, Syria, Haiti. This is what we do: have fun, do good, and get to know the people we are fun-raising for. The $5,962.07 we raised will help pay for the services offered by the Residence, from paying for an educator for their daycare, to giving French and English language classes, and showing new arrivals the city, so they can become self sufficient. Thank you Paolo Oliveira, thank you to the amazing team at Brasserie Central, to all those who offered raffle prizes, and to the talented George Mavitzis for the wonderful images, and to Guillermo Castellanos for filming!
“I love people. I love to see people happy, I like to see people feeling good about themselves and I like to help people…These refugees leave behind their family, their way of living – everything. And coming to a foreign country, you have nothing no one knows you, you’re just – not even a number – I am very sensitive to that. But beyond compassion I have a lot of respect – to do this you have to be extremely solid, most of us don’t have the balls to do what these people do – (refugees are) super human people. ”
