Eyes Of Hope

Hopefully you're enjoying your summer! Here are a few updates from EOH. Upcoming events BuskerFest (Aug 28, 2pm) What: Buskerfest When: Sat, Aug 28, at 2pm; stay for as long as you want Where: St. Lawrence Market area; meet in front of the golden building across the street from union station. Hope you all had a great summer. As you all know, we have less than a month until school starts again. This means it's time to pump up your spirits for a new year of bringing positive change in the community with Eyes of Hope. To help you get into the spirit, we have planned a special event. On August 28th, we will have a group trip down to St. Lawrence area to experience the 11th annual Scotiabank Toronto International BuskerFest. What is BuskerFest you ask? Well, it is a festival/fundraiser event organized by Epilepsy Toronto featuring 100's of performances from magicians, comedians, daredevils, musicians, clowns, contortionists, acrobats, aerialists, and puppeteers from around the world. Festival admission is any donation to Epilepsy Toronto and each performer collects their own remunerations by passing a hat after their performance. It's a great way to explore the St. Lawrence area and enjoy thrilling performances while helping out a great cause. Here's the official website for BuskerFest. If you'd like to join us, we will be meeting across the street from union subway station (Front & Bay intersection), in front of the golden building. After brief introductions, we will then walk down Front Street to where the festival is held. New members will always be welcome so bring your friends out as well. If you'd like to join us, please sign up here. If you have any questions, feel free to email Cathy. Eyes of Hope Goals and Accomplishments EOH's main goals have been to help alleviate poverty in both the local and international community, while developing leadership skills and having fun! Currently and these past few years, we've been active in community-helping events through: A. Affordable housing via UofT Habitat for Humanity Campaign - sponsor a UofT house and then build it! B. Helping children a) Free the Children - fundraised to build a school in Sierra Leone b) World Vision - sponsor two children; fundraised for Sichuan earthquake relief C. Homeless outreach a) Sandwich Runs - make and give out sandwiches, while understanding and destigmatizing homelessness b) Homeless shelter and food bank volunteering c) Umbrella Painting - painting umbrellas with homeless youth as art therapy and to use as homelessness awareness D. Projects that members wish to propose and lead! To highlight a few of EOH's accomplishments: Free the Children school - Through building a school and education, we hope to end the cycle of poverty. We've now all raised and donated enough money ($8500) to build our school in Sierra Leone! A gigantic THANK YOU to all who made this possible! Habitat for Humanity house - We're over 20% of the way done with our UofT house! We've fundraised $18,000 of the $80,000 to build this home. This seemed like an overwhelming project when we first started, but it's definitely doable; let's finish this! If you have any questions about EOH or any of its initiatives, feel free to email eyesofhope@utoronto.ca. In Memory of Davis Doan After a valiant struggle with cancer, Davis Doan passed away on Thursday night, May 20, 2010. Founder of Eyes of Hope and current PhD student of U of T’s Civil Engineering Department, he was also a great son and friend. He was a big dreamer and a gentle soul with a desire for helping others and tried to inspire change in the world even in just little ways, motivating others to help to the best of their abilities. Keep his memory alive. Our hearts go out to family and friends. We will miss him deeply. ------ Donations For those who have been asking about a way to donate and help support the charities that Davis helped through Eyes of Hope, here are three possible methods: 1. Click here to donate online to Habitat for Humanity and directly support the UofT Habitat for Humanity Campaign, of which Eyes of Hope is a supporter. <Click here> for more information about this ongoing project. Habitat for Humanity can issue tax receipts for donations over $20. 2. Donate, in memoriam, to World Vision. Click here to donate online. Click here for the form to donate via mail. <Click here> for more information on how Eyes of Hope supports World Vision. 3. Click here to donate online directly to Free the Children. <Click here> for more information on how Eyes of Hope supports Free the Children by advocating eduction. Free the Children can issue tax receipts for donations over $10. Note: For those wishing to directly help Eyes of Hope projects, donating through method 1 is one way to do so; Eyes of Hope supports the UofT Habitat for Humanity Campaign. If donating online through option 1 is not feasible, a cheque can be written to "Eyes of Hope". (However, please note that Eyes of Hope cannot issue tax receipts.) Cheques can be mailed to the following address: Eyes of Hope c/o Emily Lam 7360 Medical Sciences Building 1 King's College Circle Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A8 To keep updated on how the donations are helping to alleviate poverty, please check this website, or email eyesofhope@utoronto.ca with "Donations Update" in the subject line to receive email updates detailing milestones. Please send any questions to eyesofhope@utoronto.ca. Thank you! ------ His loss is shocking and deeply saddening, but those of us who have worked with him are determined to keep up his legacy. EOH will continue! Getting Involved in Eyes Of Hope & Exec Meeting The purpose of Eyes Of Hope is to allow members to develop their leadership skills by organizing/participating in events that help the community. We want to have an environment where people can initiate new ideas and have the group support them. If you would like to join Eyes Of Hope, you can add yourself to the mailing list (eyesofhope.skule.ca/mailinglist) or our facebook group (Eyes of Hope - University of Toronto) If you would like to be an executive then you are welcome too. Executives are members who attend meetings, help organize events and volunteer at events. We recently had a meeting in August for those interested in helping to lead/plan/initiate EOH events to help the community for the coming school year. If you didn't get a chance to come to the meeting, but are still interested, please email eyesofhope@utoronto.ca - it's never too late to join and we welcome all EOH members, new and old! Send an e-mail to eyesofhope@utoronto.ca if you have any other questions. Eyes Of Hope reaches $28 000 mark! As of July 2010, Eyes of Hope has raised over $28,000 for charity! Since the summer of 2007, we've raised $8500 for Free the Children (school in Sierra Leone); $2700 for World Vision (2 sponsored children, Sichuan 2008 earthquake); $16400 for Habitat for Humanity; and $900 for our sandwich run program! Thank you to all who have helped out in the past three years :) About Us 1. Leadership Development 2. Community Involvement (helping children, helping the homeless, provide affordable housing - Habitat for Humanity) 3. Having Fun Our purpose is to allow members of the UofT community to develop their leadership skills, help create positive change in the community, and to have fun. Leadership, communication and teamwork skills are important life skills, but are not necessarily taught in the classroom. We believe in giving our members the opportunity to develop these skills by initiating and taking charge of events. Any member (even new members) is welcome to take charge of their leadership development and organize events. As members of the UofT community, there are many things we can do to help the community, and we should help others where we can. There are things that we can't do but there are many things that we can do to help make the world a better place. The events we organize and the frequency of the events are based on our members, what they want to do and what they can do. We will help the community as much as we can. Many of our events focus around one of three themes: helping children, helping the homeless, and providing affordable housing (Habitat for Humanity) Finally, people join campus clubs to meet new people, make new friends and have a good time, and Eyes Of Hope is no exception. The events we organize are meant not only to help people develop their leadership skills and to do something positive in the community, but they are also an opportunity for people to meet each other and have a good time. A list of events that we have organized in the past can be found on our events blog: <click here> Photos of our events can be found on facebook: facebook.com/uofteyesofhope If you have any suggestions of new event ideas or you want to get involved to help organize events, please feel free to contact us! New members are always welcome to join us and take charge to organize new/existing events. Contact Us / Facebook / Mailing List Questions? Comments? Interested in taking action to help make the world a better place? E-mail us at eyesofhope@utoronto.ca Find us on facebook! Eyes of Hope - University of Toronto To join the Eyes of Hope mailing list, go to eyesofhope.skule.ca/mailinglist (please use hotmail, gmail, yahoo if possible) Sponsors University of Toronto Engineering Society University of Toronto Department of Civil Engineering University of Toronto Engineering Alumni Association NOTE: Eyes Of Hope obtains sponsorship and support from organizations within UofT Engineering, but we have and do welcome all members from the UofT community to join, contribute and participate.