“Greenwood College has made bagged lunches in the past for our youth to take to school, designed PSA’s, canvassed over the years in Tokens4Change/Time4Change event, and a variety of other projects. This year, Greenwood students are spreading awareness of the realities of youth homelessness, aiming to break down negative myths and stereotypes, and highlighting strengths and resiliency of our youth. We hope to not only educate but empower the community towards change.” - Mike Burnett, YWS Community Engagement & Education Specialist
The Greenwood community is a long-time supporter of
Youth Without Shelter, an Etobicoke shelter offering emergency residential and referral services to youth ages 16 to 24. Greenwood has been involved with Youth Without Shelter through our service learning programs, participating in both the brown-bag lunch program and Tokens4Change.
For the past several years, every Wednesday morning, students have made and bagged lunches for YWS residents. The Greenwood community has also participated in their annual Tokens4Change event where students collected public transit tokens to support essential transit fare costs that enable youth to transition to stable, independent living as they strive for their educational goals, search for employment and find a home to call their own.
As a way to continue our support, the Greenwood community was happy to take part in YWS’s virtual Time4Change campaign this year. The Time4Change campaign uses performance and art to engage the public and raise funds for Youth Without Shelter.
On Friday, February 26, Greenwood students gave a visual arts performance to spread awareness about youth homelessness, break down negative stereotypes, and highlight strengths and resilience of youth. You can see the Greenwood performance, along with many other performances, on the
Youth Without Shelter YouTube channel.
This year, Youth Without Shelter was thrilled to have surpassed their $60,000 goal and will share their final amount raised on their
Instagram page later this week.
We are so proud of what Youth Without Shelter is doing to combat youth homelessness and we are looking forward to supporting YWS for many more years to come.