What is Coldest Night of the Year?

Coldest Night of the Year is nightlight’s biggest fundraising event of the year. It’s a nation wide walk on February 20th to raise funds for charities that work with the hungry, the homeless and the hurting. In Belleville and Kingston, nightlight is the partner charity. We’re aiming to raise about $50,000 between the two cities, this is money that helps us pay rent and utilities to keep our drop in centres open.

How does it work? People sign up on teams with friends, family coworkers, or people who go to your church and they walk, 2 km, 5 km or 10 km both to raise money and to experience a little of what the poor often endure during the cold winter months.  After the walk, we gather at the starting point for a hot meal and a time to visit.

The event registration begins at 4:00 pm while things get officially underway at 5:00 and wrap up about 8:00 pm

How Can I Help?

There are 3 main ways you can help:

Register to Walk

We’re looking to recruit 160 walkers in each city, so if you’d like to help us raise money, you can sign up at coldestnightoftheyear.org/register. Join an existing team or start your own (which really isn’t much more work than joining one). recruit your friends, family and coworkers to walk with you and make it a fun, social occasion.

Volunteer

Running an event like this requires a lot of volunteer help. We need a welcome team, registration, food service, and route marshals. If you’d like to help, you can sign up at coldestnightoftheyear.org/volunteer

Donate

Each of our walkers will be looking for donors to help them meet their fundraising target. Perhaps you can’t participate, but you feel this is something worthwhile supporting. You can ask a walker to sponsor them with a pledge form, or you can make a donation online at coldestnightoftheyear.org/donate

WIth your help we can have a great event, raising money for the work we’re doing and help us spread the word about nightlight.