Courage To Come Back Awards presented tonight
Posted April 25, 2013 8:54 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – For 15 years, Coast Mental Health has been honouring extraordinary British Columbians with its annual Courage To Come Back Awards.
Around $8 million has been raised since the event was first held in 1999.
Coast Mental Health Executive Director Darrell Burnham says a big beneficiary has been the society’s Resource Center at Seymour and Davie in Downtown Vancouver.
“Our first Courage to Come Back Awards was to help raise [the $1.7 million] needed to build it and so subsequent Courage Awards [have] helped it become a vital, almost a first contact for people with mental illness in the city,” he explains.
“Someone has to start in… recovery someplace and actually what Courage tells us and the stories of the recipients, is that there’s been some person or some organization who has been important in their recovery as that starting point,” adds Burnham.
“They were able to go from being a victim of their circumstance, their illness, their health, to actually start moving forward and taking charge and finding ways to recover. That’s what Coast is really does is help people find that way to recover, accessing whatever supports they may need in the community to do that.”
The next big project for Coast will be a supportive housing complex in Richmond, which is set to open in 2015 at the site of the old KFC restaurant on Granville Avenue.
“It’s a very complex project with 129 units and six non-profit societies working with the City of Richmond and BC Housing. At the end of the day, we will have 38 units for people with mental illness,” he explains.
This year’s Courage to Come Back recipients include Curtis Miller, recognized in the Social Adversity category; Andy Fiore in Mental Health; Thea Cunningham in Addictions; Cindy Lee in the Medical category; and Lindsey Lourenco, who is being awarded posthumously in Youth category.
Tonight’s Courage gala at the Vancouver Convention Centre is sold out, but you can see the recipients collect their awards from the comfort of your own home, as the ceremony will be streamed live over the Coast website.
The website also has information there on how you can donate to the Courage To Come Back.
News1130 is a very proud sponsor of the Courage to Come Back Awards, which are awarded every spring.
