(bright music)
- This morning started out so bad,
I got an Uber driver that got lost
and he was playing the most horrible music.
(easy listening music)
This is my first year at Project Water Survival,
I've come several years for Project Winter Survival.
In fact, there was a kickoff of this wall many years ago.
See this mural behind me?
It's how I first connected with this
wonderful event and these amazing people.
A kid, several years ago, watched all Invisible People
videos and then he went and painted this mural
out of his favorite ones, and that's all thanks
to Constable Scott Mills, Officer Scott Mills
how we say it in the States is a Toronto police officer
who used to take gang kids and find businesses
and then they would use their wall to have the art.
I tried, as a cop, to engage graffiti art community
in positive community-building endeavors
and I got really really inspired by Mark Horvath
at Invisiblepeople.tv, who at the time
was down in Los Angeles because he was telling
the story of people experiencing homelessness.
And I showed this to Kedrick Brown,
he's a graffiti artist, he's known as Bubzart
and he went and watched every single one
of Mark's videos and he decided to paint
along with his friend Jesse Patchell
who is known as Art of Fame.
They decided to paint some of the faces
that really inspired them of real people
experiencing homelessness and it's really exciting for me
that the work here where this particular mural is
is the home base for Project Winter Survival
and Project Water, which actually provide
3,000 winter survival kits and summer survival kits
for people experiencing homelessness annually.
And today's Project Water 2017.
(upbeat music)
- This is Jody.
- Hi.
- What are we doing here?
- We are packing 3,000 Project Water survival kits
for Engage & Change and in a few minutes
we're gonna have 150 plus social service agencies,
homeless shelters, and outreach programs
so that the social workers have the supplies
to help the homeless keep hydrated
on the streets during this hot summer.
- And how long have you been doing this?
- This is the 18th year and we're also giving out
300,000 bottles of water, we've already given out
2.5 million bottles and it's essential.
It's Canada, we shouldn't be having to deal
with this challenge but we are, and homelessness,
I wish it would put my project out of business but it seems
that demand is going up and up which is not good.
- Why, why, how did you start this?
Why, why are you doing this?
You're a business owner and this is a lot of work.
- It's a lot of work, I'm a business owner
with a heart and it breaks my heart every day
when a homeless shelter comes to to me
and says I don't have enough money
but I desperately need sunscreen or socks or hats
so I said let me do what I do best
which is build relationships and mobilize
other business owners to give back.
(bright music)
- One thing I really love about what Jody does
and what Engage & Change stands for
is they don't go out and give these kits,
I mean we do a little bit but
these kits go to service providers.
So often outreach is being caught, they can't even
afford water so by putting these kits together
and then giving them to local service providers
that are going out, connecting to homeless people,
building relationships with the goal of ending homelessness
and hopefully getting them into housing,
it's why I support this event.
(upbeat music)
Love about this event is how Toronto police
is really integrated and every level,
right from social media to building the kits, truly amazing.
Hey everybody, this is Scott.
- Hi everybody.
- Scott, besides being a Toronto police officer
is, in my opinion, the very best social media event person
I've ever met and he's running social media for the event.
Ta-da.
- Not really running, it's a teamwork here
but essentially what I'm trying to do
is we have a lot of followers
on our Toronto police social media
and I'm trying to take the great content
being produced here by volunteers and community members
for Engage & Change project, Project Water
that's getting 3,000 survival kits
to people experiencing homelessness
throughout the entire greater Toronto area
by delivering them, packing them here at this warehouse
and delivering them to social service agencies
that can give them to their regular people
that they meet on the street, and I think
this is just a very worthwhile cause
and there's a whole team of people
that are kinda working here today
and we're just talking back and forth to each other
and trying to get the word out to donate.
- So what's your number one tip?
Or give two or three if you want
about social media and events.
- Social media events, the number one
thing is you need a good back end.
You need good communication back and forth
and you need assigned roles and basically
have people excited to do those roles.
And if you can accomplish that, then the day of,
you can really capture the moment,
capture people doing great things and tell the world
about it and hopefully the world will get as inspired
as the people that are here at the event.
("I Feel it Coming" by The Weeknd)
- People want to take action, people want to do something
but charity never solved a social crisis.
So I've always said it's okay to feed somebody
in a park as long as you're doing
something to get them out of the park.
So great that Engage & Change and Project Water Survival
they give the kits to service providers
who are working to get people out of homelessness.
(bright music)
Everybody's working hard this year, Jody,
thanks to wonderful supporters, the survival kits doubled,
twice the stuff inside, all good stuff, hats,
sunglasses, sunscreen, and of course water.
- I love most but what I do is a sense of community
and Engage & Change and Project Water
involves just that, it's about bringing people together
for an incredible cause, a horrible cause
but a cause that has to be paid attention to
because what's sad out there of having people homeless,
not just in the winter but in the heat of the summer,
especially here in Ontario is incredible.
Does anybody know what the stat is
of how many people, do you know that it's
more likely to pass away and die of dehydration
and being homeless than it is to freeze in the winter.
Now think of how hot it is here today,
how sweaty we are here today, we've got tons of water
thanks to Nestle but imagine if we did this
today without any water, how would you feel?
Now take that and throw in the fact
that you don't have a home, you have nowhere to go,
you've got no shelter, you've got no regular income coming
and you've got no food, that's why you're here today
and that's why this is such an incredible cause
so you know what?
I want to give a big round of applause
to Jody and her entire team because
(crowd applauding)
she does an incredible job, 18 years of doing this.
That is incredible, you know what?
It's thanks to people like you and of course our sponsors
a lot of people that donate product and time
and all that kind of stuff, so thank you very much.
- Terry and his entire team from Nestle Waters
and they've been involved for we're just gonna say
several years because I think we lost count.
I think it's actually more than 10 but that's okay.
Today, though, I had the honor and privilege
to meet a man who's changed my life, Mark Horvath.
Mark Horvath will tell you a little bit about himself
but when I met him he was in L.A.
We met in a conference we spoke at together
in New York City, Twitter what was it called?
- 140 Conference.
- The 140 Conference, I did not know how to tweet.
But I was asked to speak at the conference
about this kind of stuff that we're doing.
Mark has an incredible organization
called Invisible People, he will tell you more
but he would be, if there had to be
kind of a president or an expert on homelessness
in North America or even globally, Mark is the guy
and he's come up from the United States to be here with us.
And we're going out doing outreach
with the media this afternoon, so Mark.
(crowd applauding)
- So I was homeless for seven years
and then I rebuilt my life back to a three bedroom house
and the economy tanked and I lost everything again
and I grabbed a camera and started empowering
homeless people to share their own stories.
Since then it's been about 300 cities,
eight different countries, I was really honored
that your government had me travel to 24 cities
in Canada a few years back, but as I travel
and I meet people on the street, y'know I love seeing faces
that I recognize but I hate that they're still there.
So I have to tell you about Jennifer
because I ran into Jennifer last night.
So I first met Jennifer after Project Winter Survival
three years ago and I interviewed her and posted her video.
She's in a wheelchair, she's sleeping outside,
this will be her, this last winter was her fifth winter
sleeping outside in the winter.
So I ran into her last summer and she just
wasn't in the mood to tell her story, I don't blame her
and yesterday she did so the video's up
on Invisible People but my point in all that
is is you guys really deserve a round of applause
for coming here today and helping, it's so greatly important
but you cannot let this conversation,
this cause, this momentum stop here.
You all have a voice and whether it's with your church
or your synagogue or your co-workers or wherever,
you need to be talking about this
because collectively you can influence policy change
and there's never been a more urgent need
to end homelessness in Canada than there is right now.
And that is up to you, today was fun,
today is great, today has huge impact
but you need to keep that momentum going
and we need to get these people off the streets into homes.
So now it's my favorite part, the kits all made,
non-profits, charity service providers
are pulling up trucks and picking up kits and water
but Jody and I and a bunch of people
are gonna go downtown and hand out a few kits ourselves.
(bright music)
What do you do?
- So I'm Alette I'm a registered nurse in Street Health
and Street Health is a community agency
in downtown Toronto, Dundas and Sherbourne
and we serve clients or individuals who are homeless,
marginally housed, precariously housed
and our clients have complex needs,
whether it's mental health and addictions,
whether it's just not being able to make ends meet,
they've been out and down on their luck for awhile.
We try to provide them with as much healthcare as we can,
community services or access to community services,
support workers, primary care, and advocacy.
And also the outreach which is part of our primary care.
- [Mark] So tell me about Project Water
and why this is important.
- So water is important, water and survival kits
are important for our clients,
especially during the summer months.
So during the winter months, it's easy for people
to sort of have an image of what homeless people
might be experiencing and how difficult it is for them
but the summer plays a larger role
in debilitating our clients who are already
living challenging, difficult lives.
When you don't have access to water,
cool water, or shelter, when you're forced
to continually be on the march, on the go,
trying to find somewhere where you can rest
for a few minutes, having access to cool water
or supplies, whether it's a cup, whether it's a towel,
a washcloth can be really important
to a lot of people who have nothing at all.
(upbeat music)
- Thanks everybody for joining us today.
It was wonderful, Jody thank you for bringing me in.
- Thank you as always for visiting
and spending the day with us, Mark.
It's a, hopefully there will be
no homelessness and we can just hang out.
- That would be great.
If you would like to know more about Engage & Change,
there will be a link in the description.
Please donate, possibly bring Jody in,
teach your organization how you can do charity
but charity that has real impact in ending homelessness.
- And also if you're a business
and you want to figure out how to do something like this,
my slogan is giving back makes great business sense
and I'm happy to talk to you about that too.
- Yup and so like this video, click.
Like this video, click blah blah blah blah blah.
Like this video, click subscribe,
support us on Patreon and til next time, see ya.
- Bye bye.
(inspirational music)