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Long, Long Night of Hope raises cold, hard cash

Participants spend one night sleeping in their cars to raise funds for Lookout Society
night of hope
Donna Lawrence gets some warmth from her 16-month-old granddaughter Lorelai as she prepares for the Long, Long Night of Hope at North Van’s St. John’s Anglican Church. photo Mike Wakefield, North Shore News

A group of people will spend one cold, cautious night sleeping in their cars in a North Vancouver church parking lot next week in the hopes of raising funds for folks who have to live that kind of existence every day.

This is the third year of the Long, Long Night of Hope, a fundraising and awareness initiative that was created by Donna Lawrence, a member of St. John’s Anglican Church in North Vancouver. Lawrence knows that what they are doing is nowhere near the same as living your entire existence out of your car – a reality for hundreds of people around the Lower Mainland – but she has gotten a taste of what it is like to be on the street sleeping in a vehicle. 

“It’s freaky. It’s cold,” she said. “There’s this feeling somewhat of security because it’s your own car and you know the doors are locked, but at the same time it’s this feeling of being very vulnerable because there are windows, because it’s North Vancouver but it’s still downtown North Vancouver and there are people around. You hear every footstep of everybody who walks by on the sidewalk. You don’t get a lot of sleep.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to extrapolate that experience into what it would be like to live it every day.

“It would be terrifying,” said Lawrence. “I’ve got to say that I’m a single mom, and as a single mom growing up in this economy, I was always basically one paycheque away from not being able to pay rent and not being able to pay the bills. It’s not hard to imagine, ‘What would life be like if I didn’t have that roof over my head? And what would it be like if that happened while my kids were still small?’ Now I’m a grandma and I worry about my kids and I worry about my granddaughter. It’s not hard to imagine just how hard that life would be and how terrifying that life would be.”

When she was organizing the first Long, Long Night of Hope in 2017, Lawrence was greeted with a lot of support but no one really expected them to make much more than one or two thousand dollars. Seven people took part, and together they raised more than $10,000 for the Lookout Society. That number jumped to $19,000 last year, and this year they are hoping to top $25,000.

Lawrence has received some feedback from people accusing them of being ‘homeless tourists’ having a fun little outdoor party, but she said the money they raise for people who really need it is what the Long Night is all about.

“I don’t want this to be the feel that we are just camping out and it’s a grand old time. The idea is to be lying there in the cold and feeling vulnerable and realizing that this is reality for hundreds of people on the Lower Mainland,” she said. “Getting the experience – that is for the participants to really kind of get this tiny taste of what it’s like. But raising the money is the most important thing. Without the money, the Lookout Society can’t do anything.”

The first two Long Nights have been chilly, but the forecast for this year’s event – scheduled for Feb. 23 – looks downright cold. Are they ready for the possibility of being well below freezing with a chance of snow?

“I’m getting there,” said Lawrence with a laugh. “I think I’m going to have to get an extra quilt.”

She’s learned a few tricks over the years.

“You can’t run your engine. Every once in a while you could start up your car, but it’s going to disturb the people around you, it’s going to disturb the neighbours,” she said. “Make sure that you’ve got really warm sleeping bag or quilts, make sure that you’ve got an insulated pad to sleep on top of. Your car does not keep you warm. It actually seems to transmit the cold, just like it transmits the heat in the summertime. Hand warmers, things like that – really good to have. And it’s nice to have a little flashlight or something like that, something that if you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re feeling a little freaked out, a little bit of light helps.”

The event is associated with the church, but anyone is welcome to join in, raise funds and take part in the event by sleeping in their car or on the floor of the church.

“Anybody and everybody is welcome to join us,” said Lawrence. You could fundraise for a day and still take part. There’s no minimum to raise. If we could get more people to join us, more people to raise some money, the more the better.”

For more information visit longlongnightofhope.ca.