Firefighters raise $9000!

Photo: Contributed

In partnership with the Kelowna Yacht Club, The Kelowna Professional Firefighters Charitable Association, raised over $9000 at the First Annual Rooftop Campout July 20 – 22, 2018. All of the funds will be donated to The Bridge Youth & Family Services for their Youth Recovery House Campaign. 
 
Event organizers Ryan Corsi and Steven Meyer were grateful for the community’s generosity and say they are looking forward to a much larger event next year. “We pulled this off with about 3 weeks planning time and in the midst of fire season, so we were pretty pleased with the results,” says Meyer. “Many of our crew worked their regular shifts and then came down to the Yacht Club to volunteer at the event.” 
 
Director of Fund Development for the Bridge, Kelly Paley says they were thrilled with the results. “We were able to start a dialogue about the need for Youth Treatment in our community, it was so powerful to watch our First Responders connect with people and have them open not only their wallets, but their hearts to our cause - what an amazing way to kick off our fundraising campaign,” she says. 
 
With less than 50 publicly funded beds available in the province for young people struggling with alcohol and substance use disorders and no beds available in the Okanagan for youth under the age of 17, The Bridge is raising the estimated $10 million dollars needed to open a Youth Treatment program in the Central Okanagan. The Youth Recovery House will be a leading edge 16 bed rehabilitation program for people under 19 years of age who struggle with a substance use disorder.  It will be a place of healing and recovery that will reconnect young people with their community, and with the people who care.  
 
For further information and to donate, visit www.youthrecoveryhouse.ca