This spring, Royal LePage Wildrose Real Estate, together with the Mountain View Emergency Shelter Society, joined a large crowd in Olds, Alberta to mark the groundbreaking of a new community emergency women’s shelter. 

Named in honour of a young local mother of twin boys who lost her life to family violence in 2021, Kirsten’s Place shelter will have six rooms and be the first emergency shelter for women in the county (located between Calgary and Red Deer).

“While there are Royal LePage offices from coast to coast generously supporting their local women’s shelters, it’s a very rare and special occurrence when a brokerage can be so heavily involved in building a new shelter from the ground up,” says Lisa Gibbs, executive director of the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation.

The need for support ‘is huge’ and has grown since the pandemic

The need for services and support to help women fleeing intimate partner violence in Olds has risen since well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The need is huge. We have one outreach worker and one program worker and in 2023 they dealt with 212 clients in Mountain View County and had 48 people attend their programs,” says Joe Carignan, president of the Mountain View Emergency Shelter Society.

Over $300,000 raised through Radio-thon for Shelter

Most of the $800,000 raised came from the community, with the Town of Olds donating some of the land for the shelter and the Alberta government contributing $125,000. Royal LePage Wildrose Real Estate raised more than $300,000 through its annual Radio-thon for Shelter. 

“Having been fundraising to get this shelter built for the last six years, we are absolutely delighted to finally get to this day,” says Clare Dickie, owner/manager, Royal LePage Wildrose Real Estate. “It’s so heartening to see all our hard work and the incredible generosity of our community begin to take shape before our eyes.” 

Photo: royallepageleadingedge.ca