The Editor,
Re: “I will fight 104 Avenue Centre proposal with everything I have,” Now letters, Sept. 8.
I just read Mr. Coughtrey’s letter regarding City Dream Centre. If I did not know anything about the facility and what they do, then I would probably have a similar position.
SEE LETTER: I will fight 104 Avenue Centre plan with everything I have
City Dream Centre in Surrey will be modelled after the original Dream Center, located in the heart of Los Angeles, a facility now celebrating its 23rd year in operation. It’s a beautiful building right in the centre of a community, where crime has dropped 75 per cent since the Dream Center started helping those in need there.
It’s a community that has no tents, shopping carts, abandoned cars or trash on the streets, a community where property values have risen and where homeless people are not lurking. What you will see are beautiful faces of all races who have found a hand up, a place to find resources.
You would see a face of a father that has perhaps lost his job and is struggling with providing the basics that most people take for granted. You would see moms who cannot buy their children shoes being able to not only get a new pair for their children, but for herself.
SEE ALSO: Surrey church group has big dreams for long-vacant building on 104th Avenue
You would see a father working to get his GED to get a better job. You would see the face of a young woman who was once a victim of human trafficking now a college student, working and providing for her daughter.
Yes, you would see young men who made stupid choices when they were young, spent time in prison or living with addiction and now need a safe place to land and find hope again, getting a trade and finding a great job to become productive members of society.
You would see the face of a young, abused mother who has lost her way finding hope again.
You would see a student who once lived for years in a car with his sick mother. He never went to school until someone called the Dream Center for help. Now this young man is thriving with straight A’s in his second year of college.
I know these to be true because I have the privilege to work at this amazing place in Los Angeles. (CLICK HERE for more information about the L.A. facility.)
I also grew up in Surrey and remember as a seventh-grader someone coming to our house to drop off a box of food because we were in need.
There are now Dream Centers all over the world, and Surrey will be so richly blessed to also have one to help hurting humanity.
Crystal Hultquist, Director of Gifts-In-Kind,The Dream Center, Los Angeles, California
