The Central Okanagan Journey Home Society continues to establish its home in the community and has announced the appointment of six new board members as well as surpassing the $1 million mark in its fundraising efforts to raise $2.7 million.

鈥淭he Society received an overwhelming response from the community to its call for board members,鈥� says Gaelene Askeland, executive director of COJHS.

鈥淭he outcome is that our board includes a broad spectrum of community and business leaders who are dedicated to contributing their energy into implementing the Journey Home Strategy. They are a reflection of our community 鈥� the community that came together during the Journey Home process and vowed to work together to reach functional zero of homelessness by 2024.鈥�

The new board members are Murray Bye, Josh Cairns, Ken Gauthier, Debbie Hubbard, Helen Jackman and Donna Jansons. They join founding board members Dave Krysko, Scott Lanigan, Diane Roy, Shane Worman and chair of the board, Dr. Kyleen Myrah, representatives from the Lived Experience Circle on Homelessness, youth advocates and a number of ex-officio organization representatives and liaisons, including 琉璃神社 Mayor Colin Basran.

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鈥淭his is an accomplished and competent group who are excited to dive into the work of Journey Home,鈥� said Myrah.

鈥淚nitially set up as a working board, we are asking for a significant commitment from the members, leveraging their talents for Journey Home every day. We are fortunate to have had such an outpouring of response from the community to assist, that we will be tapping into these volunteers to help with the extensive implementation strategies outlined in the plan.鈥�

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The community has stepped up and continued to 鈥榠nvest in people鈥� by supporting Journey Home. This has been demonstrated over and over again, most recently by an investment that has taken the total amount raised $1,092,678.

鈥淲e continue to work diligently to establish our goal of funding the Journey Home Society for the first five years of operation,鈥� said Myrah.

For the remainder of 2019, the COJHS board will focus on a thorough mapping of services available in the city, including a gap analysis to determine what is missing; establish the COJHS day-to-day operations; build connections with provincial and federal governments and tap into all available resources as soon as possible; and create education around who experiences homelessness in our community and why.

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