Streets Alive fundraiser takes wing

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on July 2, 2024.

Herald photo by Justin Seward Matt Gregory and Ryan Lepko participated in the Wing Ding wing challenge on Saturday at Nicholas Sheran Park. Gregory was able to eat the most wings in 60 seconds and win the contest.

Streets Alive Mission hosted a Wing Ding community event on Saturday at Nicholas Sheran Park to raise awareness about the organization’s programs and provide a sense of community.

“Wing Ding is really about community and it is a community event,” said Jennifer Lepko, Streets Alive Mission chief development officer.

“Streets Alive Mission is a community-funded organization predominately and (it is) about giving back to the community, bringing awareness to what we do, and letting people know that we do a lot of good in the community and we want people to share.”

Attendees could enjoy things such as a bouncy castle, throwing rings on mini-pylons, face painting, a dunk tank, a pie-in-the face booth and a Wing Ding wing challenge to see who could see the most wings in 60 seconds if contestants could get a minimum $40 in donations or pledges.

The volunteers were mostly people in their programs.

“So again a part of our programming for our recovery program is giving back to the community,” said Lepko.

Lepko was asked why Wing Ding was a fitting event to get their message out.

“We live in a time now where we see people on the street, we see people struggling with addiction and our kids are seeing this as well,” said Lepko.

“They need to learn about that these are real people, these are human beings and it’s not gonna go away anytime soon. And so, our kids see it, we need to have some of those discussions.”

Street Alive Mission has three pillars of the church with a focus bringing the gospel, providing mission services to help street people with basic needs and making better choices and a recovery program for men and women which is faith based and abstinence based and includes a residential component.

“We have an amazing success rate with men and women from all over coming in and really recovering their lives and hitting back to the community contributing,” said Lepko.