REALTORS® serving Calgary and area

Oct. 07, 2014 | CREBNow

Calgary brokerage presents cheque to Children's Cottage Society

Royal LePage Benchmark donates more than $13,000 to Children's Cottage Society

For the last five years, the crew at Royal LePage Benchmark have been fundraising for the Children's Cottage Society (CCS), including this year's offering of more than $13,000.

"[CCS] helps the world's most vulnerable population, the children," said Corinne Lyall, owner/broker for Royal LePage Benchmark and president-elect of CREB®. "Our agents really like the idea of supporting families and trying to keep them together and providing counselling in order to make the families a healthier group." CCS works to prevent harm and neglect of children while building strong families through support services, respite programs and crisis nurseries. The society, around since 1986, operates Brenda's House, a transitional shelter and re-housing program in the southwest community of Killarney.

Lyall presented the cheque - funds raised through the yearly National Garage Sale for Shelter and agent donations - to CCS board president Stewart Gossen Oct. 7.

"It's very rewarding to be part of an organization that is successfully implementing its mission in the last dozen years or so," he said. "We've grown dramatically in size in terms of the services we can provide to the community."

Also on hand was Patty Kilgallon, executive director of CCS, who spoke to Calgary's need for more affordable housing.

"We used to be able, when we started in 2009, is ... to house families within 15-30 days. But as you all know with the rental market the way it is and housing market the way it is, it is very difficult for us to house those families quickly. So some of those families are staying with us three to four months, some families are staying longer, large families, families where you have six or seven children, [it's] really difficult to find affordable housing for them."

This summer, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Calgary's vacancy rate at 1.4 per cent, an increase from the 1.2 per cent recorded in 2013, but still tied with Edmonton for the lowest in Canada.

Kilgallon announced CSS has purchased land in the northwest community of Montgomery in order to construct further facilities to help those who need them.

 

 

Tagged: Calgary Community | Calgary Real Estate News | Royal LePage Benchmark


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