Huge donation goes toward helping city’s less fortunate

By Alexandra Noad - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on February 6, 2025.

The Evangelical Free Church of Lethbridge (E-Free) donated almost a quarter-million dollars on Wednesday to support the expansions of Streets Alive and the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen.
Through the annual Advent Conspiracy Project. The project was created in 2006 by a group of pastors in the U.S. to help refocus the Christmas season on Jesus by encouraging congregation members to use some of their Christmas spending to spreading love to all.
The E-Free Church has participated in the Advent Conspiracy Project since 2008 and alternates each year between local and international projects.
Jeremy Light, lead pastor for E-Free Church, says they chose this particular project, because it aligned with their values.
“We’re all about Jesus, we prioritize people and we serve Jesus by serving others.”
With Lethbridge having the highest child poverty rate in Alberta, and one of the highest in the country, Light says following a survey to the congregation, he saw many of their members being touched by the amount of poverty in the city.
“In our congregation, we recently had a survey and we asked the question ‘what breaks your heart?’ and the number one answer, by far, were issues of homelessness and poverty in our city.”
After some investigation, Luke Watson, community engagement pastor for E-Free Church, met with leaders from the Soup Kitchen as well as Streets Alive to see how they could help them.
Streets Alive recently purchased the former El Dorado RV building with plans to expand its Exodus Men’s Recovery Program, the Re-Purpose Donation Centre and the Restoration of Dignity programs. The Soup Kitchen plans on expanding their dining area to keep up with the growing need to serve people hot meals and will use the funds to purchase fixtures for the space.
E-Free Church chose to name this year’s project 25/40 taking from the Scripture of Matthew 25:40 which says, “Whatever you’ve done for these that are overlooked and ignored, you’ve done it for me.”
With the plan to help both projects, the church set a goal of $156,000, which Light says was already beyond their expectations. Light says he was blown away when the congregation exceeded the goal by a landslide for a total of $242,977.50.
“Every time I see the number, I’ve been moved, almost to the point of tears,” says Light. When we announced it publicly, I had to speak and it was hard just we because we had no concept that this would be the amount that people could raise.”
With the church raising more than the goal, they chose to split the remaining funds between the two organizations. Streets Alive Mission received a total of $164,488 and the Soup Kitchen received $78,488.
Ken Kissick, cofounder of Streets Alive, says while the capital money helps renovate their facilities, the funds they received from the church will make the place feel more like home for the people in the program.
“One of things we always want and desire is a safe, secure home, an atmosphere where we feel safe, an atmosphere where we feel accepted and when you create that, it makes such a difference in people’s lives.”
Kissick says the donations show how members of Lethbridge can step up to the plate, and also shows there are people in the city who want to make a difference in homelessness in the city.
“It demonstrates to me that when you challenge people to take on something that is right in your own community and kind of in their own face, that they will step up and this community really stepped up,” says Kissick. “It shows me there are people out there that want to deal with this problem, want to make sure it gets solved, or at least help to make sure the population is looked after.”
The Soup Kitchen provides three meals a day to those who need it which comes out to around 14,000 meals every month. With the expansion of the Shelter, which was initially thought to be completed by the end of the month, Bill Ginther, executive director of the Soup Kitchen, is wanting to keep up with the growing need for a hot meal.
“We never want to be at that stage where we turn people away,” says Ginther. “We never have and we never will.”
The Soup Kitchen is hoping to begin their renovations beginning of April, but the start date will depend on where the progress of the shelter is at.
“We don’t want too much heavy equipment on the site at one time,” says Ginther. “A lot of people are coming there now, aware of vehicles, we have people out there watching all the time, so we want to wait until their building is mostly done before we start our space.”
Since the pandemic, the Soup Kitchen lost a few of their older volunteers and enticing the younger generations to volunteer is proving to be more of a challenge.
“We’re seeing younger people don’t necessarily have that same initiative that we might have learned from our parents,” says Ginther.
Ginther says he travels to schools to help educate kids about the Soup Kitchen and have found students eager to volunteer during lunch hour with their schools.
“What we’re finding is our lunch meal is perfect for schools coming in,” he says. “School groups have filled (lunch meals) right through until fall.”
One of Ginther’s fondest memories was visiting a day home and encouraging the young kids to tell their parents to bring cold water everywhere they go and he had one mother calling him after saying her son won’t let them leave the house without cold water.
Working with the unhoused population on a daily basis, Ginther encourages people to recognize the unhoused population for what they really are, people.
“The whole idea for me is that we need to begin recognizing people as people,” says Ginther. “We have to look at someone as a person suffering homelessness rather than a homeless person.”
Ginther adds that a smile and a hello go a long way in making someone’s day a little brighter.

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