Southwest Run for Shelter Tomorrow

While making history as the first marathon to take place in Swift Current, the Perfect Boss Southwest Run for Shelter will take off this Saturday.

The event will host a five kilometer, ten kilometer, half and full marathon, with proceeds going towards establishing an emergency shelter for displaced youth in the southwest.

Premier Sponsor and avid runner, Stephanie Boss, says you can register the day of the marathon, but early registration is preferred.

"We're really encouraging everyone who is thinking about it, but haven't registered, to go to the Innovation Credit Union today from 4pm to 6pm. We'll be set up inside where you can pick up your race package and bid numbers. The first 100 participants will get a race package."

The Southwest Youth Emergency Shelter Committee formed three years ago when a group of community members and agencies got together to discuss the need for such a shelter. From there, a group of students at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School rallied behind the initiative by fundraising and creating awareness of youth homelessness in the southwest with their Five Days for Change campaign.

For five days, youth from the SCCHS sleep outside of the school without showers, money, and only one meal a day, all while volunteering their time in the community and fundraising in various ways. Five Days for Change has been instrumental in the process, raising $48,100 over the course of the last three years.

"They really wanted to bring community awarness, and that has been a huge help in people in our community understanding that this is a need in our area," said Vice President of the SW YES Board, Kayla Meyers. "One thing that people don't typically see is that when youth are homeless, you're not seeing them on park benches like what is portrayed in bigger cities or the movies. These youth are staying at homes that may not be the safest for them, they may be putting themselves in unhealthy lifestyles or at risk. Every year the Five Days for Change kids amaze us, so going out and being homeless for five days has really brought the community together."

Meyers says Southwest YES is a now a non-profit registered charity, adding that the board has had some very successful meetings with the Ministry of Social Services and the government as they take these vital steps towards breaking ground on the shelter. While things are still in the beginning stages, she says the Southwest Youth Emergency Shelter is hoping to begin construction as early as next year.

"Ideally if we could do everything tomorrow we would, but everything has to fall in line, and it all comes down to we need about $400,000 to$500,000 to start up," explained Meyers. "That's buying a house and getting it up to safety and codes, and that will be our operating costs pretty much every year. As a board we want to take the right steps and not rush into it. Ideally we would love to have all of our staff trained before we open it up to our youth."

There is a $50 registration fee for each event at the Perfect Boss Southwest Run for Shelter, and so far up to about 60+ runners are registered for the marathon this weekend.

"We were sitting around our committee table, and we were thinking about what were some annual events that we can do in our community, because part of having our shelter up and running is we have to have an annual fundraising event to keep up with our expenses," added Meyers. "We thought what does our community not have? We know that running has become such a popular thing, so we thought we'd do a marathon. The momentum is starting to pick up, so I think we've chosen the right annual fundraiser for this."

Registration will continue until the morning of the marathon. The run utilizes the city pathways and begins and finishes at Kinetic Park, with the marathon starting at 9am, and the 5k and 10k beginning at 11am.