Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And considering how bad the weather is, she's pretty sick.
Speaker 2:It makes sense. But we have something exciting coming up, the Walk for the Poor. First and foremost, is this something that happens annually?
Speaker 1:This is our fifteenth annual
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Event. It's changed a little bit over the years. Now that we have a thrift store, we base it out of the thrift store. It's an opportunity to raise money, but also to raise awareness and have a community conversation so that people see where Saint Vincent de Paul fits into our community.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and so when is the Walk for the Port?
Speaker 1:Okay, there are two parts to it. The event will be this Saturday, which happens to be the feast day of Saint Vincent de Paul. At 09:00 we will have a five kilometer run. It will start at our thrift store. At 10:00, we will have a walk.
Speaker 1:And the five kilometer run sign up starts at 08:30. You can sign up. We ask for a $25 donation, although we do not require fees of children under 18. And it's really a fun family course because we cross Shell Simmons and we run out to the airport Dyke, Ivar Road, out onto the wetlands for 2.5 kilometers, and then we turn around and come back, it's a nice flat course, you're never really on a heavily trafficked road. And it's a fun way to get some exercise in.
Speaker 1:And then at 10:00, the walk will start at the thrift store. Depending on the weather, we might take the long way down Glacier Highway across Eagan and back to Crest Street, or we'll take the short way, Glacier Highway to Crest Street and over to Saint Vincent De Paul. At our Thiel Street campus at Saint Vincent de Paul, we will have hot dogs, some refreshments. We offer tours of the buildings because people oftentimes don't realize how much Saint Vincent de Paul does there on Teal Street. We've been there for forty years and there's a surprising amount of services
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And tell me, when it comes to the actual walk, I know that you said that registration will start just a little bit before you said 08:30 is when that one will start for The the night run. The run. And tell me, do people need to is there something they need to do in advance before that registration, or can they show up and get registered that day?
Speaker 1:They could show up and get registered. We'll have a QR code so they can just register. If you want to go online to svdpjuna.org and look under events, you can register online if you want to just make a donation. We're always accepting money. We have a lot of needs.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:If you were familiar in the news last week, we had an apartment evacuated because we had a landslide on Gaston Avenue where we have two apartments with 29 low income apartments, and we had to evacuate seven households. Wow. And fortunately, there was superficial damage once it got to daylight, but we still have to clean up and it'll be less than our deductible, but that money comes from our resources.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And there's a lot of other things too. Which I definitely wanna dive into, especially where the money is going that's gonna be supporting the walk. But before we get into that, I had one more question. So when it comes to the actual walk, you said that there's not an age limit at all.
Speaker 2:Correct?
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Okay. So no age limit. And again, the date of the walk?
Speaker 1:It will be Saturday, September 27, this Saturday.
Speaker 2:Okay. So this coming Saturday. Then when it comes to the donations, does that need to be cash? Can that be a check? Can that be a card?
Speaker 2:How does that need to work? It
Speaker 1:could be cash or check or credit card. If you wanna come and see ways you can volunteer. We've had people come and see what we do and then there's opportunities for them to volunteer.
Speaker 2:I love that too. So now is the big part. What happens with the funds raised during the event? Can you share some examples on how they directly support families in need?
Speaker 1:Well, we have a home visit team that goes out and meets with people in danger of eviction, or a lot of times we provide about 10 households electrical assistance. And it's not a large amount, but it's an amount that keeps the electricity on and And keeps them in their we don't just give a check, we visit with them, discuss ways to connect them with other assistance,
Speaker 2:or ways in
Speaker 1:which other resources provide what they need. One of the things we point out too is $50 gives you the price of a bus pass or emergency transportation. For a lot of these low income people without dependable cars, a bus pass can be the difference between successful employment
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And losing a job. So that's our goal.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Beyond walking, are there you said there's other ways people can support the event, obviously like donating, sponsoring the volunteer work, how does that work?
Speaker 1:Well, we have a group of volunteers that meet the first and third Thursdays to discuss home visits. We have people who come into our thrift store, or into our campus, and do clothes sorting. Coming up, we're gonna do our Thanksgiving food basket drive, which is totally volunteer based. We will have 100 volunteers distribute Thanksgiving food baskets the Saturday before Thanksgiving. And we've also set up a volunteer program for when we operate the warming shelter, the cold weather shelter during the winter.
Speaker 1:We learned last year that with some good, clear guidelines and training, having people work in the warming shelter, and it might be just serving coffee in the morning or providing a light meal at night, makes a big difference both for the people volunteering and also for the people who are in need because they appreciate people who care and it's a way in which we show our community support and our compassion to our neighbors in need.
Speaker 2:I agree. And I appreciate you sharing all of that with us because I definitely think that there's people out there that might not know what Saint Saint Vincent de Paul has done and continues to do, you know, for the community and and for these people. And I really do appreciate that. Why do you think it's important to hold an event like this, this walk, rather than just quietly fundraising? Is there an importance Well, behind I
Speaker 1:think when you come to an event, you meet people. And if you come and eat hot dogs, you might be eating a hot dog with a shelter resident. You might be walking with somebody who is off the street. What happens in these events is you have conversations with people. Too often, we sit in the background and let other people do the work, whereas if you have a conversation with somebody, it might open your eyes and it might open their eyes to ways you can help people.
Speaker 1:And that in person touch is part of what I think is valuable with the Saint Vincent de Paul services. We're not just providing a meal, we're saying hello, we're getting to know a name, we've had some really successful home visits where the initial problem somebody asked for was not the biggest problem, but the biggest problem was solvable once we had this conversation.
Speaker 2:I love that. I really do. So again, this is the Walk for the Poor. It's gonna be taking place this coming Saturday. The five k registration is gonna start for the run at 08:30.
Speaker 2:They're asking for a $25 donation although, you know, the kiddos are completely welcome. Definitely wanna encourage people to come out. It's going to be for a great cause. And then we have the walk that'll kick off at 10AM, correct?
Speaker 1:10AM and there's an opportunity to go over to our Teal Street housing. I call it a housing complex because it's really two buildings, 30 No, it's 57 different just on Teal Street. We actually have 101 low income housing units within our organization. And you get to meet people, you get to see how Saint Vincent de Paul makes a difference in the community.
Speaker 2:I love it. And again, that's happening this Saturday. If anybody has questions, is there anywhere, a website they can reach out to?
Speaker 1:Svdpjuno dot org. You could email infosvdpjuno dot org and your inquiries would be addressed.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Anything else you wanna highlight before we take off for the day?
Speaker 1:Well, I know the weather may or may not be pleasant on Saturday, but we have a choice of going out in the weather. There are people in our community
Speaker 2:That is a great way Who to put have to and
Speaker 1:they don't have a place to go. And this is an opportunity to help us and have a discussion and make a difference.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you ended it with that. That is absolutely perfect. Some of us don't even have, you know, the choice to be outside. So if you do have the chance, even if you don't, make it a point to do so this coming Saturday, the Walk for the Poor. Thank you so much, Dave.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:We got more of everything you need to know happening in the capital city coming up here on KINY.