A new truck for YES

The YES Shelter for Youth and Families is celebrating a recent donation that will have a big impact on youth and families experiencing homelessness in our community. Hydro One has donated $25,000 to YES towards the purchase of a new truck.

A much better option

“Up to now, we’ve had to rent a U-Haul regularly to meet our needs, and this has been a substantial cost to the organization,” says Meagan Hennekam, Executive Director of YES. “Now that we have a truck, we’ll be able to pick up larger donations on our own, and it will be much easier to move young people into housing.”

Hydro One to the rescue

It was a relatively quick process according to Alexandra Martin of Hydro One’s Community Investment Council. “What we’ve learned about YES is that you know exactly what you need to best serve your clients, and we want to be able to provide that support,” she says.

How will our new truck help?

With this truck, we’ll be able to move literally hundreds of homeless youth into housing. Moving them, their belongings and whatever they need into their new place will be so much easier now and help make the experience of moving to their new home, a better one.

YES feeds the youth and families in the emergency shelter 3 meals per day, largely with food that’s been donated. With this truck, we will be able to pick up our larger food donations from Kawartha Food Share as well as other donors and community partners, rather than have to rent a truck.

Also, now that we have four RISE Youth Housing locations, we’ll be able to transport maintenance staff and equipment among them in a much more efficient way. As well as drive young people to important appointments.

Great big thanks

This new vehicle will be a huge help to everything we do here, and wouldn’t have been possible without Hydro One’s substantial donation of $25,000 and a generous support JJ Stewart Motors in Norwood who helped us pick the perfect vehicle.