Toronto youth shelter Covenant House has invited Toronto’s business elite to sleep outside on Nov. 15 to raise awareness and funds for homeless youth. Among the participating Bay Street investors and high-ranking public servants are a clutch of well-known marketing and advertising professionals.
The event, called Sleep Out for Street Kids Executive Edition, is honorarily co-chaired by Toronto Maple Leaf president and GM Brian Burke and Arlene Dickinson, CEO of Venture Communications (and a member of CBC’s Dragon’s Den).
“On any given night in Toronto, there are as many as 2,000 youth living on the street,” says the website for the Toronto event. “On November 15, a group of senior executives will give up one good night’s sleep to raise awareness and money for homeless youth at Covenant House. This experiential event will give executives insight into the challenges faced by homeless kids in Toronto every night. More often than not, these kids are fleeing abuse and neglect and have no one to turn to. 50% of these kids come from middle and upper income families.”
In addition to Dickinson, Toronto’s marketing community is represented by:
• Duncan Hannay, Scotiabank, SVP and head of marketing for Canadian banking
• Diane J. Brisebois, Retail Council of Canada, president and CEO
• Jeremy Gayton, Taxi Canada, president
• Michael O’Sullivan, Aimia, president of proprietary loyalty Canada
• Stephen Brown, Fuse Marketing Group, president and partner
• Tony Chapman, Capital C, CEO and partner
• Bruno Codispoti, BrandFusion Ltd., president
• Paul Lavoie, Taxi, co-founder
• Penny Stevens, Media Experts, president
• Stephen Corbett, Array Marketing, COO
A similar event is set to take place in Vancouver, but at press time no participants’ names were available.
To make a donation to any of the participants listed above, click their names to visit their personal Sleep Out page.
