Refugee Walk-a-thon 2024: Walking for Refugees - St. James Cathedral and Community Refugee Committee

Walking for Refugees

The St. James Cathedral and Community Refugee Committee invites you on a leisurely 5km walk through one of Toronto’s most beautiful ravines. We are raising money to sponsor refugee families and raising awareness of how our refugee committee welcomes new Canadians and helps them thrive in their new homes. Bring your camera, your family and friends and importantly walking shoes! Meet committee members. Hear about what we do.

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THE ST. JAMES CATHEDRAL AND COMMUNITY REFUGEE COMMITTEE

What: Walk-a-thon: Walk for Refugees

When: Saturday, 28 September 2024 at 10:00am

Where: Edwards Gardens Southwest corner of Lawrence Ave. East and Leslie St. (TTC Accessible, Parking Lot and On Street Parking)

We’ll be walking a leisurely five km through one of our most beautiful ravines.

WHY?

There are currently 117.3 million forcibly displaced people in the world.

75% – are hosted by low- and middle-income countries.

This is more than double the 42.7 million people who remained forcibly displaced a decade ago and the most since World War II.

Canada welcomes over 20,000 refugees every year. Migration strengthens our country; diversity provokes innovation and creativity. It creates a community that bring together different perspectives, ideas, and voices that produce a unique idea and take us from strength to strength.

WHAT WE DO:

“You were always there morally, physically and financially to support us. We saw in you the love, the family, and the friends that we never had.” A, single woman from Cameroon who arrived in 2019

Since 2015 the St James Refugee Response Committee has been providing crucial support to new refugee families arriving in Canada. For their first year here, the committee provides significant financial support, practical help with paperwork, housing, furnishings, schools, public transit, finding doctors, friendship and moral support. Privately sponsored refugees find jobs sooner and experience less stress in a strange new land than those with government sponsorship alone. 

The committee is looking to support a family of 8 from Afghanistan to come to Canada next year as well as additional future sponsorships in 2025. This work is only possible through the generosity of the Toronto community. Your donations provide accommodation, legal advice, household goods and visas for the privately sponsored refugees that the St James Refugee Response Committee is welcoming to Toronto. Thank you in advance for all the support given to the committee and future families who will soon be arriving in Canada!