CAPTION: Cierra Foster (left) and volunteer Shaelah Mataechuk, distributed care packages to homeless in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in mid-December, then reached out to Langley’s homeless on Dec. 30.
A couple dozen Reason for the Season volunteers delivered some 70 care packages to Langley’s homeless last weekend, but that is only the beginning.
At least it is a jumping off point for event organizer Cierra Foster, a 18-year-old Brookswood teen who arranged distribution of toiletries, clothing, blankets, shoes, and food to Langley’s street population on Dec. 30.
She kicked off this concept, dubbed Reason for the Season, last year in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
While she repeated the effort earlier in December along Hastings Street in Vancouver, she also chose to do something in her own hometown this year.
And that first-time effort in Langley has driven Foster to want to do much more.
“I’d really like to see our community come together and support the homeless, and this is just going to have to be a project that I make bigger,” she told the Langley Advance.
It was “interesting,” she said, to see how many local homeless showed up, in part because it was a first-time event, but also because of the weather.
“But we had a great turnout,” Foster said of the distribution day held Saturday outside the Southgate Church – next to Army & Navy.
Foster, several family members, more friends, and several complete strangers were set up in the mall for several hours.
A lot of the recipients stuck around until Foster and the team finished up, which she described as “really nice. [It] gave us the opportunity to get to know each other and chat a bit,” Foster added.
Thanks to a flood of donations she received, in large part during a collection drive in Brookswood a few weeks earlier, the Reason for the Season volunteers were able to make up 90 care packages in advance.
It was enough donations to fill an entire room, Foster said.
“It’s hard to explain how much we got because I don’t have a certain number of bags. But we got so many that it got to the point where I could no longer keep things at my house as I had no room,” she chuckled.
“We handed out hot chocolate, coffee, sandwiches, baked goods, warm jackets, sweaters, pants, blankets, shoes, and care packages (each package contained a toque, scarf, gloves, toiletries, socks, and a few little other things),” she said.
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There were, in fact, so many donations received, that Foster and some of the team members travelled north to Maple Ridge that same afternoon, and handed out the remaining care packages at a shelter in that community.
“I was extremely proud of myself that day,” she admitted.
“First of all, to be the one to bring all my friends and family and other volunteers together, and then to start seeing all the smiles and some tears coming from the ones we were helping. Everyone of my volunteers went home with a memory they won’t, forget from that day,” she said.
For her, there were many touching moments, but one in particular resonated with her.
“It was just something little, but it really spoke to me. I was helping this lady, Maryann find a pair of warm boots. We had tons of shoes, but we were having a hard time finding her size. Finally I found a pair of really warm ones and she quickly took her little shoes off to try on the boots. They fit perfectly. She lit up right away and was so relieved she was almost in tears,” Foster recounted.
“For some reason, this moment really hit me and I felt so humbled. Later on, I noticed she was still hanging out in the room enjoying the warmth as long as she could… These people have nothing, so when we can easily give them a bit of love through a pair of boots or a warm jacket it amazes me.”
She said those little moments are what makes all the hard work worthwhile.
Compared to Vancouver, Langley has far fewer homeless people, Foster noted.
“But another difference is that Langley’s homeless are trying to be invisible. We were told by the homeless that they like to keep themselves hidden as much as they can and they do this because when they are found, they are pushed away by the community or by the bylaw [officers]. This really saddens me. These people don’t have homes, there isn’t enough shelter space, and now they are being pushed out of the streets and parks. Where are they supposed to go?”
With a better understanding what she calls an “overwhelming need” for help, Foster said her outreach efforts will most definitely continue.
“I’m really excited to see what projects I can take on in the new year, and I am going to try to focus on our local homeless – not only at Christmas, but throughout the year.”
For those interested in assisting as volunteers or with donations, Foster asks them to contact her via email at cierradfoster@gmail.com.
