The Denver Rescue Mission raises three-quarters of its budget during the holiday season. The organization kicks off a series of upcoming events tonight with a Legacy Dinner.As the weather turns colder, the homeless become more visible to residents of metro Denver. Donations rise and more people think about volunteering. The Denver Rescue Mission, the oldest Christian non-profit organization focusing on the homeless, raises 75 percent of its annual budget between September and December, says public relations director Greta Walker.
“We absolutely love that support but we still want people to remember that this kind of help is needed year round,” Walker says.
The Denver Rescue Mission will hold a Legacy Dinner Saturday night, a fitting event for an organization that was founded in 1892.
The event, to be held at the Denver Center for Performing Arts, will include dinner, live music and a juice bar. Tickets are $50 and will be available at the door.
The Legacy Dinner will celebrate the organization’s “Heritage of Hope – 115 years of providing emergency services, transitional housing, assistance for permanent housing, rehabilitation, and outreach to the poor and homeless.”
Just over 10,000 people in metro Denver are homeless, Walker says. But she says with the leadership of Mayor Hickenlooper and the Denver’s Road Home, the city’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, more attention has been focused on the problem.
“To have Hickenlooper’s support and to have everybody working together, it’s wonderful to bring everybody to the table,” Walker says.
The Denver Rescue Mission has several other events looming, including a Nov. 5-9 food drive through which Walker hopes to collect 120,000 pounds of food and the annual Thanksgiving Banquet.
For more information about the Denver Rescue Mission, go here.
