The Outreach Centre located in Red Deer is home to so many important services that aid people throughout the central Alberta area experiencing the effects of domestic violence, poverty, mental health issues, suicide and so many more challenges.  

This holiday season the Outreach Centre is asking people to ‘give the gift of hope’ and provide a donation in support of the many programs that exist to help central Albertans.  

After running an extremely successful Tools for School program earlier this year, the Outreach Centre saw need more than double in the community. The organization is expecting the need for this holiday season to be no different for their Adopt-A-Family program.  

“Every dollar that is donated goes into the backpacks or it goes into the gifts and the groceries for the families at Christmas,” said Ian Wheeliker, Executive Director of the Outreach Centre.  

“On top of that we are like the other charities, we get some funding and grants from the government but we never get quite enough to make ends meet. We do a lot of fundraising through the year including Walk A Mile, our Golf tournament, Lip Sync Battle, our mailout solicitation of donation throughout the year, so we can raise the funds that we need to keep the programs going that we have,” said Wheeliker.  

Typically, around 65 per cent of the organization’s costs are covered through government grants leaving 35 per cent of their programs funded by local donations.  

Today, Sunny 94/LacombeOnline are joining the Outreach Centre in their call for donations by hosting a Holiday Hope Radiothon. For more information on how you can donate, click here.  

You can read all about the Outreach Centre and several of their programs by visiting the links below: