YESS Champion

Reflecting on our adolescence invariably evokes intense emotions and memories for each of us. While we remember the positive influences and protective supports that helped us navigate our adolescence, we also acknowledge how difficult it must be to navigate adolescence without these influences and supports.

Bernedette Butler is proud to share some thoughts both as a caring professional and a grateful, loving daughter. Bernedette knows that adolescents experience positive change when passionate donors honour and emulate the kindness, love, and grounding that helped shape their own lives.   

I am co-owner of Lokken College which works closely with government agencies to support people over 18 years old who experience barriers to employment. Many of our students’ employment barriers were caused by struggles during their youth. These struggles often cost them opportunities that others take for granted. I choose to support YESS because it provides youth who experience these challenges a hope for a better tomorrow. YESS builds resilience in traumatized youth by providing shelter and necessary individual and community supports. Resilient youth grow into adults who are better able to use their skills and strengths to meet the challenges and expectations of their future.

Today, when COVID-19 creates uncertainty for everyone, we must remember that the youth who rely on YESS’s services need us more than ever to provide support, caring, and hope. This is why I decided to give my support in memory of my mother. There are many ways to remember those we lost, but a donation to YESS best reflected my mother’s love for children and her hope for a bright future for us all. YESS, like my mother, understands that, by helping youth make that difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, we are creating a better future for them and our communities. We are giving them hope, offering support and showing that we care. 

In memoriam or “in memory” donations give profound meaning to the person and anniversary that you would like to honor, while making an important difference in a child’s life.  We in turn thank and pay tribute to your generosity by ensuring that your gift helps vulnerable youth in our community and province every day.

The gift that you make today – no matter how big or how small – will help YESS sustain, strengthen and grow our programs as we provide life-changing supports in real time to youth suffering trauma and experiencing homelessness in Edmonton.

Thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity by choosing to support the work of YESS through In Memory Gifts. To make a donation in memory or in honor of someone special, or to celebrate an important occasion, visit YESS.org/donate or contact our Development Office at 780-468-7070.  We’d be delighted to speak with you.

Oodle Noodle is not only a local favourite for Edmontonians, but a hometown hero committed to supporting non-profits with food donations. We talked to Jay Downton, President of Oodle Noodle, about what drives them to give where they live.

How does Oodle Noodle give back to the community? Oodle Noodle donates 200 lbs of noodles and sauces every week to charities that help feed our community. We also donate a portion of our in-store sales to local charities. Both programs started at the beginning of the pandemic, and since March, we have donated 17,000 meals worth of food and $110,000 for local charities. This program will forever be a part of Oodle Noodle, and we look forward to working with all these great programs in our city.

Tell us why you choose to support YESS? It warms our heart to know programming like this exists to help youth who experience both trauma and homelessness. It is important everyone knows the vital role that YESS plays in our community. We just want to do our part to support and share that message.

Why is it important to Oodle Noodle to support the community? One of our core values is “Oodle Noodle Loves Edmonton.” It’s great to say that, but it’s more important to back it up with action. This is one of the ways that we want to show our love for Edmonton.

Kate and Peter Morrison pride themselves on being “prairie people.” Kate was born in Edmonton and raised in Sherwood Park, and Peter is a Saskatchewan farm boy.

They met when they were both working in Regina. After they got married, Kate and Peter worked all across Canada and lived in many different communities. Wherever they were, they believed in helping out local causes through volunteering and, when able, financially.

“Growing up, we both learned the importance of helping others, whether friends, family, neighbours, or strangers,” says Peter.

The Morrison family moved to Edmonton in 2000. Peter joined Canadian Western Bank (CWB) and his work included working with and facilitating CWB’s Community Investment Program. CWB’s focus was and continues to be on local communities, as well as encouraging and supporting its employees to become involved with local organizations. One of CWB’s three primary areas of focus was youth and that was how Peter became aware of YESS.

As he represented CWB at the Homeless for a Night event, the annual YESS gala, at breakfast fundraisers, and at tours of the Armoury Resource Centre, it became clear to Peter that supporting youth could be a personal cause for his family.

“The work YESS was doing struck a chord with us,” says Peter. “Our sons were in their late teens, so we were attuned to that generation. We were fortunate our sons were safe and healthy, but some of their friends were dealing with the effects of substance abuse, sexual exploitation, family breakdown, and suicide.”

The Morrison Family began to support YESS through in-kind donations of new and used clothing, food items, tickets for sporting events, and through financial gifts. It was during this time that Kate and Peter became aware of the Canada Revenue Agency’s gifts of capital property, including gifts of common shares in public companies listed on a designated stock exchange. This program allows donors to transfer stock “in-kind” to a charity of their choice, receive value as a charitable donation equal to the value of the stock on the day of the transfer, and not be subject to a capital gains tax. For Kate and Peter, this was a cost-effective way to meet their personal donation goals while supporting YESS.

“There are many, many people in this world who are in dire straits. We don’t need to look beyond our neighbourhoods to see the needs,” says Peter, still driven by those lessons he learned long ago to help others in the community. “The youth YESS focuses on will hopefully become the people who will enable future generations to make this world a better place. By helping them we are helping ourselves.”

Everyone who makes a planned gift to Youth Empowerment & Support Services (YESS), regardless of the amount, enables us to provide life-changing trauma-informed care programs, a warm place to sleep, nutritious meals, medical care, job training and education, and housing support to youth who need it the most. And that is an incredibly powerful thing to do!

If you are holding publicly traded securities which have appreciated in value in your non-registered account (e.g., not held in a RRSP or RRIF) consider making a donation “in-kind” to YESS. Your professional advisors can help you plan wisely for the impact you want to make.

For information and to explore opportunities, please contact Senior Development Officer Eileen Papulkas at 780-468-7070 ext. 298 or email her at eileen.papulkas@yess.org. You many also contact our Development Department at giving@yess.org or fax 780-466-1374. We would be delighted to hear from you.

For National Philanthropy Day 2020 we nominated The REALTORS® Community Foundation, Ledcor Group, Collin and Janel Bruce, No Room in the Inn, and Hillcrest Junior High to recognize their incredible support of YESS!

Hillcrest Junior High

Each year the Edmonton Oilers NHL team runs a Hockey Helps Kids campaign. Schools pick a charity to support and submit a proposal to be selected as one of four school groups, each of whom, represent their chosen charity in the campaign. Hillcrest School chose Youth Empowerment and Support Services (YESS) as their charity. The group creates a video presentation about the charity, which is then shown at NHL hockey games and works online as well to get votes for their video. Hillcrest School was able to accumulate a large number of votes and was able to get an award of $10,000 for YESS, which is used for clothing, food, shelter, youth training, and many other things. The students at Hillcrest did an outstanding job of representing YESS through the creation of their video, all of which they did themselves, and directly helped a large number of traumatized youth in doing so. They are an outstanding group of kids with an incredible understanding of social responsibility.

Don and Elaine Geake have been giving to YESS annually for over 20 years, but their story with YESS begins long before that. Get to know these incredible members of our community and how they have taken action on their lifelong beliefs to help those who need it.

I [was born] two days prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though growing up during WWII and early post-war time wasn’t always easy for our family, my three brothers and I were made aware of the need to help others less fortunate. This philosophy is one that my wife Elaine and I passed on to our children who have continued this practice in both career choices and daily life.

I focused my high school courses on a career in engineering, but in Grade 12 I felt an urge toward a “helping” occupation. I enrolled in education instead and worked with the Edmonton Public Schools for 34 years as both teacher and principal.

My first contact with YESS came in the mid-1980’s when I was principal at Mill Creek Elementary School.  At Christmas, the school community would donate [gifts] of non-perishable food items which were given to YESS.

As an educator, I recognized the importance of providing children with a sound base in a safe and encouraging environment for a happy and fulfilling life. In addition to meeting their basic needs for food and shelter, it is also necessary for mental and emotional support.

My wife and I have continued to contribute to YESS because it plays an important role in supporting youth in crisis with not only the necessities of life, but also in achieving mental and emotional stability.

A big thank you to the staff at YESS for their dedication in providing their clients with hope, healing and safety as well as educational and occupational opportunities.

 By Don Geake

Don’s work with students demonstrates the importance of engaging young people in their community. YESS values working with schools to empower students to support their community and practice leadership. We continue to help with this in the online teaching and virtual worlds, as well as in-person.

If your school is interested in learning more about YESS and our work, please contact us at giving@yess.org or call 780.468.7070.

Boston Pizza has been a long-time champion of YESS and youth in Edmonton! For the past few years, they have focused their donations to the YESS overnight shelter, which has an immediate and positive impact on the prevention of youth homelessness. At YESS we focus on prevention and diversion out of youth homelessness, ensuring that the youth who access our programs have the connections back to family or safe housing situations as well as life skills, emotional regulation, relationship building, and trauma healing support to help them safely and appropriately integrate back into the community.

With the 2019 Boston Pizza Charity Golf Classic, Boston Pizza donated $15,000 to our overnight shelter program! In addition to supporting our programs, Boston Pizza also supports the spirit of connection by providing pizza dinners for movie nights and other special events we host with youth in our overnight shelter, daytime resource centre, and supportive housing programs. Moments when our youth can come together like this are truly special.

Boston Pizza was also among the restaurants who stepped up to provide meals for our youth while our Whyte Ave kitchen was being renovated!

Over the years, Boston Pizza has donated  $125,000 to various YESS programs and impacted the lives of thousands of youth. They have demonstrated amazing leadership in the cause of youth homelessness, and we are honoured to have them as part of our community walking beside youth on their journeys towards healing and appropriate community integration.