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CCEH and CT REALTORS® ask CT to help gift a PaddingtonTM bear to a homeless child

Funds raised will help families remain in the warmth of a home

November 14, 2016
In honor of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) and the Connecticut REALTORS® Foundation are asking all Connecticut residents to join them to “be homeful for the holidays” and make a donation to the be homeful project to help families remain in the warmth of a home.

CCEH’s be homeful project aims to end homelessness one family at a time. 1,000 families experience homelessness in Connecticut each year, including 2,000 children. CCEH is also partnered with Paddington Bear™ to raise awareness about the issue of family homelessness. Paddington himself was homeless at the start of his journey, which is why he is an ideal “spokesbear” for the issue.

This holiday season, the CT REALTORS® Foundation will also be donating a beautiful Paddington plush bear to children in shelters as a match for the first 2,000 donations of $25 or more made to the be homeful project. CCEH and the CT REALTORS® Foundation are asking children/families, organizations and communities to hold “bear-raisers”. The average cost to prevent a family from becoming homeless through the be homeful project is $1,000, so every 40 bears “raised” will prevent one family from becoming homeless. More than 300 bears have already been raised thanks to the generosity of over 100 REALTORS® and other “bear-raisers” passionate about helping local children.

“It’s wonderful to think what a difference we can making by joining our efforts,” said Nicholle McKiernan, Chair of the CT REALTORS® Foundation Trustees. “As REALTORS®, selling homes is not just a job, it’s a way of life. So partnering with the CT Coalition to End Homelessness to ensure every child has a home is near and dear to our hearts and just makes sense.”

“This partnership will have a profound impact,” said Lisa Tepper Bates, Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. “We are thrilled to be partnered with the CT REALTORS® Foundation to make sure that every child knows that there are people in his or her community who want to help their family through hardship.”

Further information on holding a “bear-raiser” can be found by visiting CCEH’s be homeful for the holidays website at www.crowdrise.com/behomeful. Individual donations can be made at www.behomeful.org/give.

For more information, please visit http://www.behomeful.org/.


 

About the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness

The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, in partnership with members and communities throughout the state, creates change through leadership, advocacy, and building the capacity of members and the field to respond to environmental challenges. Our collective mission is to prevent and end homelessness in Connecticut. CCEH represents more than 75 members – emergency shelter providers, transitional housing providers, community and business leaders, and strategic partners – who share the goal of ending homelessness. In partnership with communities throughout the state, CCEH advances this goal through leadership, community organizing, advocacy, research, and education.

About the be homeful project

CCEH has launched the be homeful project to respond to the lack of funds available to help families at the front door of shelter. The primary goal of this project is to raise emergency funds that case workers assisting clients referred by 2-1-1 can access to assist with one-time expenses that will be the difference between whether a family enters the shelter system or is able to remain housed. CCEH is fortunate to be partnered with the children’s book character Paddington, who is helping raise awareness about the impact homelessness has on young children and engage kids, families, and communities in lending a hand to families facing homelessness.

About the CT REALTORS® Foundation

The CT REALTORS® Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation whose mission is “To be good neighbors to our members, our communities and the world. REALTORS® Care.”  Its activities include but are not limited to providing scholarships, disaster relief funds and hunger/homelessness prevention efforts.  For more info, visit www.ctrealtors-care.org.

About Paddington

For almost 60 years, British-born writer Michael Bond has been entertaining children and families all over the world with his stories about Paddington, the bear from Darkest Peru famous for his love of marmalade. Since the first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published by HarperCollins in 1958, a further 13 full-length novels and countless other formats have been published. Paddington’s adventures have been adapted several times for television and at the end of 2014 Paddington made his debut onto the big screen. A second Paddington movie, Paddington 2, is set to launch in the UK on the 10th November, 2017 and will roll out Worldwide thereafter.  In recognition of Paddington’s extraordinary popularity and success, Michael Bond was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) from the Queen for services to children’s literature in 1997 and a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2015.

 

Today, there are over 150 book titles available in 40 languages and in more than 100 countries, book sales are in excess of 35 million. The PADDINGTON DVD released in 2015 was the fastest and strongest selling DVD of 2015 in the UK. Paddington has a growing online presence with over 600 thousand Facebook fans and over 20 thousand Twitter followers.

In 2016 the Paddington brand was purchased by Studiocanal, part of the Vivendi group.

Follow Paddington on Twitter at @paddingtonbear Like Paddington’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PaddingtonBear/

Paddington Bear™ © Paddington and Co Ltd/Studiocanal S.A. 2016 Licensed on behalf of Studiocanal S.A. by Copyrights Group.