I hope that everyone is enjoying the fabulous fall weather and had an enjoyable Thanksgiving.
We had a busy September with lots going on!
Our ReStores collectively achieved revenues of $1million in the last quarter for the first time. A testament to the support for this social enterprise and how we help the environment by diverting sellable items from the landfill. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of our stores.
Another achievement was the 50/50 raffles, the instore winners pot was $7,759 that means over 7,500 tickets were purchased by our shoppers! Thank you to all the staff that make this ask and of course everyone that participates. The online 50/50 had a rush on sales towards the end of September which raised that pot to $3,855! Both of the winners were delighted to receive their calls.
The staff worked on a couple of key events during the month. It was all hands-on deck preparing for the Lake Country key ceremony that took place on the 3rd of October to co-inside with World Habitat Day. We were delighted to have many of our supporters attending the ceremony to join us in welcoming the 8 families to their new homes. This could not have been achieved without assistance from the community. We are grateful to everyone that has helped us to achieve this; the support we’ve received has been amazing.
The other event we held was a surprise farewell for Neil Smith who retired on the 30th September. It was tricky to plan this and keep the secret, but we couldn’t let him go without a sendoff and an opportunity for everyone to wish him well as he heads off to start a new chapter of retirement in Saskatchewan.
Our Jingle Bell Build is returning this year with more fun things planned to make this event bigger and better than before. Planning is currently being finalized and we’ll be launching the event at the beginning of November.
The bottle drives were a great success, and we will be having our last one for 2022 in Kelowna and West Kelowna on the 5th November and Predator Ridge will be running their drive on the 15th October.
I was honored to be invited by Habitat Canada to attend Habitat on the Hill in Ottawa. This was a very well-planned pilot event that included 10 other CEO’s from around the country to meet with Members of Parliament. The key purpose of our meetings was highlighting the impact our organization has, the barriers we face that prevent us from doing more and actions that could help accelerate the program.
I’m also excited to announce that the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra will be playing a recital at the Kelowna ReStore and it will be used as part of the Habitat Canada 2022 holiday campaign. The production crew will be recording the Orchestra after hours at the ReStore during the last weekend of October. We are looking for a few volunteers to help on the evenings of the 29th and 30th, if you are interested in helping, please contact Katie at comms@hfhokanagan.ca.
Andrea
