Vancouver church enters Pepsi Refresh Project to save homeless storage facility

All it takes are a few strokes on the keyboard, and you can help save a unique storage facility used by homeless people in Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver has not renewed funding for the Downtown Eastside facility operated by the First United Church. Homeless people use it to temporarily deposit their belongings.

This has prompted the church to join an online contest put on by Pepsi with the hope of winning a $25,000 grant.

You can vote online for the First United Church’s entry in the Pepsi Refresh Project’s food and shelter category at www.refresheverything.ca/firstunitedchurch. Voting ends October 31.

“We’ll work on some long-term funding but the first thing is just to keep it open first,” the church’s director of finance and fund development, Don Evans, told the Straight.

Evans recalled that the funding for the facility came from the city’s Great Beginnings initiative.

“The Great Beginnings is coming to an end because it was money that was given by the province for the Olympics and so there’s no money left,” he said.

The almost-1,000-square-foot storage space is open seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. At least 280 people use the facility every day, according to Evans.

The original funds for the facility were expected to last only until today (October 20).

According to Evans, the First United Church has raised some money to keep it going for a bit longer.