An organization that supports sex workers in Greater Victoria is seeking donations to help outfit a new outreach van.
Peers Victoria Resource Centre has been campaigning to raise $125,000 to replace its old, unreliable outreach van with a new one.
The society has raised more than $80,000 to date, enough to purchase the van, but it needs the additional money to outfit the new set of wheels.
The outreach van provides essential services seven nights a week to vulnerable sex workers living and working on the streets of Victoria.
"The van we have right now we’ve had for six years, driving it daily to do night outreach down in the Rock Bay stroll area, and it’s falling apart," said Rachel Phillips, executive director of Peers Victoria Resource Centre.
Phillips says the current van is unreliable on rainy and snowy nights when it’s needed the most.
The initial $80,000 was raised through an online auction and its "Peers Steps on the Gas: event held Tuesday.
"Thank you so much, like all the donations big and small make a difference," Phillips told CTV News.
"We like those big donations – I mean they’re great, they’re surprising, they’re awesome when they come – but if you look at the overall revenue what makes up the majority of any campaign usually is the smaller donations," she said.
Phillips says a contribution to its campaign is a great gift idea for the person in your life that has everything.
