2//SANDWICH RUN! on Thursday October 27.
A sandwich run is an outreach activity during which we make bagged lunches and walk around downtown Toronto to deliver meals to hungry people in need and to check up on the homeless to let them know that someone does care. This event is also a good way to see if you’d like to join our club on a more permanent basis as well as to meet other students and have some fun!
A $5 donation is required – this money will go towards buying the ingredients for the sandwiches. A free pizza dinner will be provided.

Schedule:
- 5:00pm – 5:45pm: Meet at White Room inside the Terrence Donnelly Centre (CCBR), on the 2nd floor of 160 College Street (between the MSB cafeteria and the bamboo garden) to make sandwiches. The centre is located on 160 College Street, and is denoted as DC in the campus map here: http://www.tinyurl.com/uoftmap.
- 5:45pm – 6:30pm: FREE pizza dinner
- 6:30pm – 8:00pm: Sandwich run (please dress accordingly for the weather, as we will be walking around the downtown area)

Sign-up: http://tinyurl.com/sandwichrun1027
Contact: sandwichrun.eyesofhope@gmail.com

3// UMBRELLA PAINTING! starts NOVEMBER 1ST!
Starting November and running until April, the Out of the Cold Program for homeless youth will be starting up again all over Toronto. This year we will be joining Knox Church (on Spadina) every Tuesday night as part of their Out of the Cold Program activities. After the homeless youth have their meals, we will be running an umbrella painting workshop. We hope to have this workshop run by 4-5 volunteers a week from Eyes of Hope to maintain some sort of consistency in the lives of the homeless youth– no artistic skills are required!

If you are interested in this program, please sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/EOHootc.
Questions can be directed to community.eyesofhope@gmail.com

As well, as this project requires volunteers to work with the homeless youth in Toronto, we would like our volunteers to be prepared to work with this special community. All volunteers will need to attend one training session.
Our first training session will be on Tuesday, October 25th at 6:45PM in BA2175, and will last for about 15 minutes.

There will be more training sessions following, so if you are unable to make it to this one, there will be other opportunities to be trained and prepared to volunteer for this project.

4// MONTHLY OPEN EXEC MEETING on Tuesday, October 25th
Come out to our open executive meeting for the month of October! The open executive meeting is for anyone who would like to learn more about being a part of the leadership team at Eyes of Hope, and for people who have any ideas that they would like to share and implement with Eyes of Hope.
Location: Bahen Centre (BA), Room 2175
Time: 7:00PM (right after the first umbrella painting training session)

A sandwich run is an outreach activity during which we make bagged sandwiches and walk around downtown Toronto to deliver them to the homeless. Our main goal will be to try to interact with them and destigmatize homelessness.

There will be a $5 donation for the run to go towards buying the ingredients for the sandwiches. If you are able to help buy ingredients for the sandwich run, please let us know by indicating it on the sign-up form. You will be reimbursed for your purchases.

Our sandwich run will follow this schedule:
5:00pm: Meet at the Terrence Donnelly Centre (CCBR) Black Room to make sandwiches. The centre is located on 160 College Street, and is denoted as DC in the campus map here:  http://www.tinyurl.com/uoftmap.
5:45pm: FREE pizza dinner
6:30pm:Sandwich run (please dress accordingly for the weather, as we will be walking around the downtown area)

We will finish around 7:30PM with a short debriefing.
Sign-up: http://tinyurl.com/sep28sandwichrun
Contact: sandwichrun.eyesofhope@gmail.com

Habitat for Humanity Build (Sat, Oct 1, 8am-4pm)

We have a Habitat build coming up! NO PREVIOUS CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE NECESSARY.
 
Location: 327 Dixon Road (Etobicoke)

Minimum $40 donation (originally $50)
 EOH will be subsidizing $10 off the required minimum $50, so that volunteers going with Eyes of Hope will only have to fundraise/donate a minimum of $40.  A pizza lunch will be provided.

There are only 5 spots, so please sign up quickly! Please sign up at http://www.tinyurl.com/hfhoct1.

We will send you a confirmation email to confirm your spot before the build, which will include a waiver form that must be signed and brought to the build, a confirmation letter about the build day, a pledge form for the $40 minimum donation (if you wish to use it), and directions and parking pass if you will be driving to the site (though the site is TTC accessible).

Habitat Week (Oct 3-7)

Habitat Week will be a chance to:
- bring awareness to the good work that Habitat for Humanity Toronto does.
- do some fundraising, indoors and outdoors (weather permitting)

 EOH will run Habitat Week in collaboration with the UofT chapters of Take Action! and Habitat for Humanity @UofT. 

We need volunteers to help out!  The following schedule includes what volunteer activities there are.

 Mon-Thu, 9:30am-2:30pm
SS hall & BA lobby
- Information booths
     1) about Habitat for Humanity
     2) in BA, there will be pictorial and verbal displays of past volunteers at build events and families who benefitted from HFH Toronto’s work (Habitat Exhibition); volunteers will explain about the Exhibition to passersby
- Indoor fundraising (Snacks & Signatures)
     1) Having people sign wooden beams that will be put into a Habitat house
     2) Selling HFH Toronto bookmarks
     3) Selling baked goods / samosas.
- Help bake for the bake sales

Tue, 9:30am-2:30pm
SS patio
- Outdoor fundraising (Hammers and Messages)
     1) Run a hammering booth, where people can hammer a nail for fun for a small donation! We hope that this will encourage people to approach us and ask questions about Habitat for Humanity

Volunteer sign-up: http://tinyurl.com/hfhweeksignups2011 (We need 3-5 volunteers/shift)
And don’t worry if you aren’t exactly sure what HFH does – we’ll have a briefing session for all volunteers on Thu, Sept 29 at various times (time and location TBA) so you can learn first! As well, learn some basic hammering safety skills! Volunteers will be contacted by phone/email to confirm their shift the week before Habitat Week.

 Please feel free to email eyesofhope@utoronto.ca with questions.

Eyes of Hope open meeting (Mon Sep 26, 7pm)

While we had a General Meeting this Monday, we do not intend to have regular “general meetings”; rather, we will have monthly “open” meetings where people interested in helping planning events or have new ideas and suggestions can attend.

Our first meeting is next Monday, September 26, at 7PM. Location TBA. Please sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/eohexecsept2011

Stay tuned for the new site!

EOH is participating in two clubs days this year: Engineering and UTSU.
Come by the booth to talk to us about EOH initiatives and goals, and of course explore all the other clubs UofT has to offer!

Engineering = Tue, Sep 6, 10-12noon, BA
UTSU = Wed, Sep 7, 10am-2pm, Hart House Circle

We’ve had:
- 4 Habitat builds (with one catered by Top Chef Canada)
- 3 sandwich runs (where we met all manners of people, both in volunteers and the people on the streets)
- 1 outing to Buskerfest (in support of Epilepsy Toronto)

We’ll be back in full force this year, so in order to keep up with events, remember to
-  sign up for our mailing list, if you haven’t yet: http://eyesofhope.skule.ca/mailinglist
- ‘like’ our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/eyeshope

This  July has been very warm, and today on our run, it was no exception. Like a typical run, though, we walked along Spadina and Queen Sts without encountering many of the homeless. We were wondering what we were going to do with our sandwich bags, until we reached City Hall, and there we met the many people who were going to settle there for the night. Our group was a moderately large group, and we each found a different group of street-involved people with whom to talk.

I had talked with a woman who was like the mother of the group. She would scrounge up extra food, socks, underwear, or blankets for those who needed it, and ensured that each person got what he/she needed, even if she had to go without her food. These people acted like a family, keeping an eye out for each other - including the little dog they had, who would growl and bark at any stranger who got too close. I had thought that those on the street might care only for themselves (and those are in the minority, I was told), so this was a welcome surprise to see this large (15+ people) family unit.

- Habitat for Humanity has been a big theme this year. We’ve co-hosted Habitat Week as well as a Talent Show to raise over $600 for HFH. And of course we went on a build too.

- Umbrella Painting has been another big theme for EOH this year. It has been running weekly to interact with street-involved youth in Toronto. We had a chance to show off the artwork at the Skule Arts Festival as well!

- We hosted five Sandwich Runs this year, with more to come this summer.

- Six fundraisers (that included pizza, waffle, bake and raffle sales and bucket collections) raised much money for HFH, World Vision, and Free the Children. Our latest fundraiser for the Japan relief was very successful: through pizza and raffle sales and very generous donations, we raised $501, with donations going towards World Vision.

- Four visits to Scott Mission and a visit to the Daily Bread Food Bank to make a local impact.

- Seven Leadership Development sessions were held for those interested in learning more about being a leader.

- And several socials rounded off the busy year!

Thanks to all the volunteers who came by to help with events – we couldn’t have done it without you! And those who came by the events – you’re equally as important! Together, we all donated over $3000 to various charities this past school year.

Now, keep your eyes peeled for summer events…

To highlight a few of EOH’s accomplishments:

Free the Children school
- Through building a school and education, we hope to end the cycle of poverty. We’ve now all raised and donated enough money ($8500) to build our school inSierra Leone! THANK YOU to all who made this possible!

Habitat for Humanity house
- We’re over 20% of the way done with our UofT house! We’ve fundraised over $23,000 of the $80,000 to build this home. This seemed like an overwhelming project when we first started, but it’s definitely doable; let’s finish this!

Both events raised a total of $1000, which was matched dollar for dollar for a total of $2000 raised for Habitat for Humanity. $1000 went towards HFH Toronto and $1000 went towards HFH Haiti.

HABITAT WEEK

During Habitat Week (which took place the week of Oct. 4) students around UofT could learn more about Habitat for Humanity, and brought more attention to the UofT Habitat for Humanity Campaign.

Different events took place, including:
- Habitat Exhibition: The exhibition contained pictorial and verbal pieces related to HFH Toronto, depicting the effects this organization has had on volunteers and the families.
- Hammering Nails and Signing Messages: For a small fee, participants had the opportunity to hammer a nail into wooden planks, as well as write a message of support on 2×4 beams which were used to build HFH homes
-  Habitat Speakers: HFH staff, volunteers, and families explained the impact HFH has.
- Sandwich Run: to end the week!

UofT TALENT EXPLOSION

UofT Talent Explosion featured some of UofT’s best talents, competing for cash prizes. The event was held on the evening of March 4, at the George Ignatieff Theatre. Audience members also got the chance to win a raffle as well.

In the end, a bharatanatyam number won the competition and the $150 prize (which the winner promptly donated back to the campaign – thank you!).

Hopefully we see many more talented acts (and you!) at the show next year!

If you’d like to look at our old website, you can find it archived here.