Homeless Connect Reminder

Hi everybody!


We hope the long weekend treated you well and you are refreshed for the coming weeks!


This is just a reminder that Sunday (October 19th) is Homeless Connect. We'll be at the Shaw Conference Centre (9797 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.


See you there volunteers!

Homeless Connect: It's that time of year again!

Hey everyone!

This is just a reminder that FLIF will be participating in Homeless Connect on October 19th from 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. (Two weeks from today!)

Homeless Connect takes place at the Shaw Conference Centre, 9797 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton.

If you're volunteering, see you there!

FLIF at Homeless Connect

FLIF will be participating in Homeless Connect this Sunday, April 6, 2014 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. 

Homeless Connect takes place at the Shaw Conference Centre, 9797 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton. 

Come browse our books! 

10th Homeless Connect Event

Thank you to all of the FLIF volunteers who helped to make the Homeless Connect event a success this weekend! Homeless Connect is a bi-annual event hosted at the Shaw Conference Centre that provides homeless and at-risk individuals with access to many important services at no cost. FLIF has traditionally taken part in Homeless Connect by setting up a “library” of sorts containing free books. This would not be possible without the help of our volunteers, so thanks again to everyone who was able to volunteer at this busy time of year!

A special thank you as well to AP!RG and EPL for their generous support in helping us to take part in this event.

CTV News is reporting that over 1,000 individuals were able to access the 65+ services provided by approximately 400 volunteers at this event.

Recap of the Homeless Connect Event

A big thank you to everyone who was able to come out and help us on Sunday with the first Homeless Connect event of the year! We handed out over 20 boxes worth of books to at-risk and homeless individuals. A CBC news article has reported that approximately 1800 individuals attended the event alongside over 400 volunteers. This is an important event for FLIF and for the city of Edmonton - your help in making this possible is greatly appreciated!

If you were not able to make it out to the fall Homeless Connect, you may want to consider joining us at the spring event. The date is to be determined, but should be in either April or May.

Thanks again to the great volunteers who took the time on Sunday to help out the at-risk and homeless community in Edmonton!

See more photos of the event after the jump!

Reminder: Homeless Connect is this weekend

Just a quick reminder that the fall Homeless Connect event will be taking place on Sunday October 21 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Thanks in advance to everyone who will be volunteering at the FLIF table this weekend. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Keep an eye on this blog for pictures and details of FLIF’s involvement at Homeless Connect.

We also hope to see you at the next FLIF meeting to be held on Tuesday October 23 at noon in Henderson Hall.

Welcome Back!

With the new school year comes another great year for FLIF! We are hoping for another successful year with many familiar and new faces. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out to our first meeting.

Here is a summary of some of the projects and events that we are looking forward to working on this year:

Edmonton Women's Prison Project – We are in a partnership with GELA for this project. FLIF is mainly involved in the Storybook Project (though volunteer opportunities exist for writing groups and book clubs). Inmates are recorded while reading a book as a part of this project. These recordings are sent, along with a copy of the book read, to the reader’s child, grandchild, niece, or nephew. 

Community Bookshelf – We drop off donated books to a variety of shelters and organizations in Edmonton. Deliveries typically take place once a month on a weekday afternoon. 

Homeless Connect - The Homeless Connect event is hosted twice a year at the Shaw Conference Centre. Various services are provided on this day for homeless and low income individuals. FLIF provides one such service by setting up a “library” to give away free books. The next Homeless Connect will be on October 21st. If you are interested in volunteering for this event, a sign-up sheet will be posted in the lounge.

If you have any questions or comments, or if you want to get involved, please email us at flifblog @ gmail.com. Email is also a great way of letting us know of any articles or announcements that you would like to see posted on this blog!

More Wanted Books

We distributed over 1000 books this past week at Homeless Connect 7, but there are always titles and authors that are requested that we don't have or run out of quickly. We always keep a list of these requests and try to meet the need the next time around. If you happen to have any of these books available to donate or are able to round up some before next May please let FLIF know and we will do our best to arrange a pick up. Many of these will likely end up on our next 'Most Wanted Books Challenge' list. 

This year we had a tremendous number of requests for non-fiction titles and very few resources in this area. Check out the types/genres lists and see if you have any current books that fit these descriptions.

If you would like to make a book donation please contact FLIF through email at flifblog(at)gmail.com

Please note that we do not have the ability to store large amounts of books and are only able to accept donations of up-to-date non-fiction and fiction titles in good condition. Thanks!

Authors:

• Dean Koontz
• David Gemmell
• Nicholas Sparks
• Thrasher (author who was homeless, writes about life on the street)
• Stephen King
• Arthur C. Clark (Rama series specifically)
• Catherine Cookson
• Jackie Collins
• Danielle Steele
• Charles Dickens
• John Steinbeck
• John Grisham

Titles:

• Twilight Series
• Three Musketeers

Types/Genres:

• Westerns **we are in DESPERATE need of paperback westerns!**
• comic books & graphic novels
• books for babies/board books
• crossword puzzle books
• Chicken Soup series
• Christian literature
• Self-help books
• Natural medicine
• health books
• Aboriginal titles & authors
• political books: Anti-war and Anti-capitalism
• Dictionaries & Atlases
• Math & Physics textbooks
• quantum physics
• astronomy
• French language books
  
• Spanish language books 
• true crime  
• ghost stories
•  magazines

Homeless Connect 7 - Thank you volunteers!!

A tremendous THANK YOU! to our amazing group of volunteers who came out this past Sunday to make the 7th Homeless Connect in downtown Edmonton a huge success. 

 We had our largest number of volunteers yet attend and gave away over 1000 books to the event attendees. 

This is just a small group of our many (many!) volunteers who came throughout the day.

We really want to thank everyone who gave their time on Sunday (some of you VERY early in the morning) as well as your box hefting abilities and your librarian knowledge to help out the homeless and at risk community in our city. This is an incredible event in the city and it is easy to see what an impact just one day can have on many lives. This event grows each time it is held and I hope that many of our volunteers can attest that it is not only fun but also interesting and moving to see how this city can come together to create an event like this. 

You guys are not only brilliant, hard working, fun, organized, and knowledgeable, you are also very artistically gifted!

We would also like to thank everyone who participated in our Most Wanted Books Challenge - we were able to meet a lot more of our specific author and title requests this year than we have previously. Huge thanks to our booth mates - Edmonton Public Libraries for their very generous donations to this program and Community Bookshelf. We couldn't do this event without your donations. 

I'm still reeling with positive energy from how great this event was, we had so much great feedback from the attendees and other service providers and I hope to see many of you back in the spring for Homeless Connect 8 in May 2012. 

Thanks again! from you FLIF board members Shannon & Carly :)

United Nations' University/University of Alberta volunteer opportunities

Get those planners out - it's going to be a busy autumn!

For all those interested in human rights - and you wouldn't be here if you weren't, right? - there are opportunities to get involved with the UN University and U of A's upcoming international conference, "Towards 'the Dignity of Difference,'" happening October 2-4. That is, if you can find enough time between volunteering at Homeless Connect and celebrating not one, but TWO FLIF co-chair birthdays! A variety of positions are available - check out the details below, provided courtesy of the FGSR:

"United Nations' University - October 2-4
John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights is seeking volunteers to help with final pre-conference planning and onsite assistance for United Nations' University and University of Alberta's international conference entitled "Towards 'the Dignity of Difference'", scheduled to be held October 2-4 in Edmonton. The conference's objective is to examine the impacts and implications of the most recent iteration of the Western-centric discourse represented in Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and Francis Fukuyama's The End of History theses. It will bring together some of the most prominent scholars in the relevant fields, as well as many distinguished public figures including: Fred R. Dallmayr, Hassan Hanafi, Benjamin Barber, Robert Cox, Hamid Dabashi, Tanya Narozhna, Roger van Zwanenberg, and Vesselin Popovski. The following committees have volunteer spaces available: conference promotion, local arrangements/onsite arrangements, registration, transportation, and social committee. If you are interested in getting involved in the exciting work of this international conference by volunteering your time, please contact Siavash Saffari (ssaffari@ualberta.ca) indicating your area of interest, times when you are available and language spoken. We will be happy to discuss options or answer any questions you may have."

See you all there,

FLIF