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It just doesn’t get any better than the trifecta of fantastic food, friendship and fundraising. The Rouge Garden Party, held on June 9, featured all three and more. The event was attended by a capacity crowd of 200 guests and raised $80,000 (net) to be split equally between Simon House Recovery Center and Safe Haven Foundation.
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Simon House, founded in 1982, guides and enables men to recover from addiction for a long time. The invaluable organization operates four buildings and 66 beds that provide three distinct phases of addiction treatment and recovery. More than 5,500 men have benefited from Simon House’s core values of compassion, acceptance, respect, integrity, responsibility and innovation.
Safe Haven Foundation was founded in 1996 by the dynamic Karen and John Sherbut. Their mission was to develop a program to keep homeless and at-risk teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 24 safe, off the streets and at school. Its founding program, Haven’s Way, copies that of a loving and supportive family environment that provides homeless and at-risk girls with the support they need so they can realize their full potential. The fact that 100 percent of the girls living in Haven’s Way have continued their education is a testament to the program’s success.
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Highlights of the evening were many, including silent and live auction items—the last top dollar earned thanks to auctioneer extraordinaire Bill Brown and his team, Beesley’s skilled emcee, powerful speeches from the organization’s board members and alumni, and fantastic food.
Among the 200 in attendance were: Rouge co-owners Olivier Reynaud and Paul Rogalski; Safe Haven co-founders John and Karen Sherbut with their sons Michael and Andrew and their partners Lauralee Greenlaw and Kadie Hummel; Mackenzie and Jeff Schultz; Carolyn Holloway of the Safe Haven Foundation; Reeves College lab student Machaila Jensen; Haven’s Way alumnus Taina Velsink; Safe Haven Support Coach Heidi Griffin; Simon House President and CEO John Rook; Priya Reynaud, Chief Executive Officer of Simon House; On A Dime Transformations founder Kelly Lydiard with program delivery director Alan Frank; Recovery coaches from Alberta Steve Gaspar and Kimberly Barlow; Simon House board members Nav Shergill, Susan Boon and Patrick Merz; Recovery Acres Executive Director Stian Rorstad; Simon House Chairman Shawn Lavoie and Vice Chairman Mike Cullen; Remember when Jim Coleman from Ranch; Ryan Remington of Remington Development Corporation and his wife Caley; SBSW owner and Safe Haven board member Cam MacCorquodale (and here I must congratulate Cam on being inducted into Haven’s Angels Hall of Fame this evening); Justin Bobier of Crystal Creek Homes and his wife Lucia Ocampo with WestJet; and others depicted.
