WRYM's Rough Night Out was rough, indeed

UPDATE (February 9) - WRYM’s 2020 Rough Night Out fundraiser was success!

WRYM’s Rough Night Out fundraiser was success! This weekend’s event, held in a Windsor industrial parking lot for 14 hours overnight Friday to Saturday, was the third such annual fundraiser held. Volunteers hoped that when donations for this event were collected they would equal or surpass the 2019 event total of $5,000. (The 2018 event raised $2,500.)

After totalling the pledges collected to date, WRYM’s volunteer Executive Director Greg Goulin is pleased to report that the 2020 WRYM’s Rough Night Out raised $7,325, with donations still coming in.

“The community response has been wonderful,” said WRYM’s volunteer Executive Director Greg Goulin (right). “We were trying to physically and emotionally demonstrate just how desperate life can be for homeless young people, including our guys – and many people have shown that they care!”

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Goulin says it’s not too late to donate. Just visit www.wrym.ca  or telephone 519-981-9917 for advice. You can also mail a cheque to The Windsor Residence for Young Men, 1505 Langlois Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, Canada N8X 4M3.
 
WRYM provides young men 16 - 24 years with a supportive home, individual counselling, and basic life skills. Youths with potential are diverted from the streets to reconnect with their community, education and employment. WRYM’s 2019 statistics show an average 95 percent success rate over the past three years. Since its opening in 2012, WRYM has helped more than 330 youths to build new lives. This is Windsor’s only supportive transitional housing program for young men.
 
WRYM is not government funded. It is funded by the generosity of the citizens of our community.

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WRYM’s Rough Night Out was rough, indeed

Overnight on Friday and Saturday February 7&8, a group of supporters of Windsor Residence for Young Men (WRYM) bundled up to brave freezing temperatures, darkness and heavy snowfall for 14 hours or more on an industrial parking lot on St. Luke Road in Windsor. The occasion was a fundraiser called WRYM’s Rough Night Out and the volunteers were "sleeping rough" as homeless youths are sometimes forced to do. Donors sponsored individual volunteers, and some donors dropped by to show their support.
In fact, the volunteers were well dressed for the weather, with friends and support services at hand, and everyone went home afterward. It was a miserable night, nonetheless, which was meant to draw attention to just how tragic the circumstances of homeless young people can be.

“The fact is that homelessness exists and, generally speaking, so many people who are generous in so many ways do not really have an up-close in-your-face feeling of what homeless means,” said Greg Goulin (right), the volunteer Executive Director of Windsor Residence for Young Men. “Homelessness doesn’t mean inadequate housing…. homelessness means we’re in an industrial parking lot and we’ve got to make it through to the dawn and - hopefully, thankfully - we won’t have to do this tomorrow night as well.”

“It’s dark. It’s cold. We have many friends - but sometimes you’re homeless because you don’t have that many friends who want to take you in. Then, it’s loneliness on top of it. The mental component, the anguish, is equally as devastating as the physical destruction and this is what we are trying to prevent for our youth.”

WRYM is not an emergency shelter or a subsidized housing program. WRYM provides young men 16 - 24 years with a supportive home, individual counselling, and basic life skills. Youths with potential are diverted from the streets to reconnect with their community, education and employment. WRYM’s 2019 statistics show an average 95 percent success rate over the past three years. Since its opening in 2012, WRYM has helped more than 330 youths to build new lives. This is Windsor’s only supportive transitional housing program for young men.

“We are not government funded,” said Goulin. “We are funded by the generosity of the citizens of our community.”

The annual fundraiser is in its third year and volunteers hope that when all donations for this year’s event are collected they will equal or surpass last year’s event total of $5,000.
For more information about Windsor Residence for Young Men, visit www.wrym.caHome or message WRYM on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/windsorresidenceforyoungmen.
​You can also telephone 519-981-9917.