It was a delicious week here at Operation Come Home, as TWO separate barbecues were thrown just for us.
The first was on Saturday at Liquid Impact Tattoo on Bronson. Organized by our own Jonathan Desjardins and Liquid Impact owner Cameron Gardner, the event raised almost $5,000 for OCH!
Of course, an event like this can’t happen without great sponsors – True North Eats came with their food truck to make pulled pork and VEGAN pulled pork. Yeah, that’s a thing. Most of us genuinely couldn’t tell the difference. Danny, from Express Refrigerated Delivery Services, is displaying the fruit he got donated from Orleans Fresh Fruit. And David Schaub, who supplied a ton of his delicious condiments, is proudly wearing his own company’s The Ketchup Project shirt.
Two great bands volunteered to come out and play – The Earth Dwellers played two sets and donated all their equipment for the day so we could have a sound system, and Bruce Barry and the Econolines rocked some Neil Young in two different sets.
All in all, it was a wonderful event where a whole lot of people got tattoos. Here our FoodWorks chef gets ready for his flamingo-in-a-chef hat tattoo. Then Mel Adams, who announced her debut on the Rebel 101.7 morning show at our event, gets a flower put on by Benoit. Jenn Pritchard, of 1310 News, and one of our great volunteers Maddison Kuhn, got theirs done too. And our communications director Eric Bollman, who had a contest to decide what tattoo he was going to receive, got a raccoon riding a horse eating a cinnamon bun as designed by Drew. While Benoit, in a pink leotard, looked on.
Cameron’s tattoo artists donated their time and Cameron donated his part of the proceeds, and they came to OCH today to present us with a cheque for $1,300. Thank you Liquid Impact! Also, we have some T-shirts left over. If you’d like one, contact us and come by our building, they’re just $20 each! (Here they are modeled by the fashion-forward Jonathan Desjardins – design by our own Rob Chief.)
We had a welcome visit this week from Sean Van Steinburg and ATU Local 279, who brought us socks, hygiene products, water and snacks they had collected. So many they needed a truck! And Kirsten, Anne, Anna and Jessica from Hydro Ottawa dropped off an gigantic donation having done a really cool thing in their workplace. They, as the youth committee, celebrated International Youth Day by creating an escape room in their office. The cost to play was a donation to OCH – and our youth benefited! Thanks ATU 279 and Hydro Ottawa!
On Thursday, the Lord Elgin Hotel, Metcalfe Hotel, and Residence Inn by Marriott teamed up to throw us a massive lunchtime barbecue. They see the homeless youth downtown and want to do something to help. So they got their chefs out in force to make burgers, chow mein, and some top-notch baked goods! Our people came out to volunteer, and model their products. Here, Jenna models shrimp chow mein, Jonathan smizes over a veggie burger, Lindsay does the price-is-right reveal of a bag of Lay’s, and Lynda insists on displaying a Five-Alive, despite being informed that Five-Alive is the worst of all canned drinks.
Here, a preview of next week’s Back To School blog:
This is Alyssa, on the left, with Jenna and Amanda. Alyssa came out to volunteer at the Lord Elgin barbecue, and served chow mein like a champ!
Now here’s Alyssa, just starting English 4C, her FINAL mandatory credit for graduating high school in our Achievement Centre. She has been working incredibly hard over the summer, and has completed an amazing NINE credits in just one year. She hopes to one day be a social worker or counselor.
Next week, when regular school resumes, Alyssa will no longer be alone in the classroom, because a TON of company is coming! Our school, as of Tuesday morning, will more than double in size. Why? Well, that’s another subject for another blog. Check us out next week!