{"id":32204,"date":"2022-11-17T19:08:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T00:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32204"},"modified":"2022-11-24T22:42:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T03:42:25","slug":"walk-a-mile-in-her-shoes-raises-over-75000-for-local-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/walk-a-mile-in-her-shoes-raises-over-75000-for-local-shelter\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk a Mile in Her Shoes raises over $75,000 for local shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You can\u2019t truly understand what someone is going through until you walk a mile in her shoes \u2013 but that\u2019s just what this community tried to do once again as Yellow Brick House this month hosted its first in-person Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event since the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again hosted in partnership with St. Andrew\u2019s College, the event, which also included a virtual component for those unable to be at the school\u2019s Aurora campus for whatever reason, sees participants of all genders don a pair of high heels for a mile-long walk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event is now in its sixth year and attracted nearly 200 in person participants who collectively raised just over $76,000 for Yellow Brick House. Dollars raised will go directly towards essential services like funding a shelter bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt costs us $150 per shelter bed per night, supporting the shelter beds that women and children desperately need to flee a violent situation,\u201d says Yellow Brick House CEO Lorris Herenda. \u201cWe had St. Andrew\u2019s College students help us organize the event, and also with the support of female students from St. Anne\u2019s. We\u2019re very excited about the growth of this partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students, she said, were \u201cabsolutely astounded\u201d by the statistics related to domestic violence shared by Yellow Brick House, including that one in three women and their children have been or will be impacted by violence, and how these issues were made worse due to isolation that came with the global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe younger people who were there for the first time approached me after the event to say, \u2018I didn\u2019t know how prevalent this is,\u2019\u201d said Herenda. \u201cThere was a young man who attended with his girlfriend and he said to me, \u2018I want to bring my son and daughter,\u2019 and he doesn\u2019t even have children yet. \u2018I want them to be a part of this movement because we need to stop violence against women and children.\u2019 That\u2019s very powerful for me because that\u2019s one person and we could have thousands of people like that who would be taking that step to raise awareness and break the silence around domestic violence. It is such a hidden issue, it has been such a private issue, yet it impacts one in three women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Walk a Mile in Her Shoes now in the books for another year, Yellow Brick House is now turning its attention towards its holiday giving campaign, which will seek financial services again for funding shelter beds in addition to expanding counselling programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe currently have a four-month wait list for our counselling programs for families who are not necessarily residing in our shelter but need the support in the community,\u201d Herenda shared. \u201cWe want to really focus on increasing funds for increasing our scope of services and, of course, our shelter beds. In addition to that, the families who are staying with us over the holidays do require some support for the holiday celebration. If people are inclined, people can donate gift cards to families that have to deal with food security or getting essential clothing like winter coats, boots and hats for the kids. That\u2019s always a high priority item. People can definitely visit our website at yellowbrickhouse.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf people are making a donation for our transitional package for a woman who is leaving the shelter and coming into her own apartment in the community, the transitional package will provide her with the basic necessities such as cutlery and plates, mugs and a kettle, and some towels because these families are starting from nothing. I would highly recommend people check out our website for detailed information and to see how they can support us best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t truly understand what someone is going through until you walk a mile in her shoes \u2013 but that\u2019s just what this community tried to do once again as Yellow Brick House this month hosted its first in-person Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event since the start of the pandemic. Once again hosted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/2022-11-17-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8nq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 02:17:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}