The “Suite-est” Volunteers

The Cause

We are requesting $2000 for our Suite Ambassador volunteer program. Every year, we receive over 200 suites at the Saddledome for hockey, lacrosse, concerts or other special events. We fill each suite with deserving kids and their families from our 300 community and social service partner agencies. These are kids that are in shelters, foster care, have critical or life threatening health issues, have financial need, are newcomers, or have complex social or personal circumstances.
Kids and families receive a VIP night in a corporate box suite as they cheer on their hockey heroes, enjoy the thunder of their first concert, get lost in the magic of Disney On Ice storytelling, or laugh along to the antics of the Globetrotters. For each donated suite, we send one of our trained and screened volunteer suite ambassadors to help the family find their way, ensure they get settled and that the bottomless bowl of popcorn arrives, and act as a host for the event, ensuring they have an amazing experience!

Our team is only 3.6 FTE, so we rely on the capacity of our volunteers to run this program. They provide over 800 volunteer hours annually to the suite program. Funds would be used for volunteer training, police and intervention checks, training materials, brochures, t shirts or identification, suite kits (containing activities for the kids, markers, paper etc. so that families may create a thank you card for the donor). At $2000, this is only $1 per child/family member impacted. $1 to provide the VIP suite experience for each child!

Who Will it Benefit?

2000 kids and their loved ones from some of the most vulnerable and at risk populations (those in homeless shelters or foster care, youths in mentorship and outreach programs, children with critical or life threatening illness, those with disabilities or special needs, newcomers, or those with complex personal or social situations.). With 200 suites annually, this represents approximately 2000 clients per year. Our clients are from Calgary and across smaller communities across Southern Alberta.