Kaelee Steele, a 24-year-old Lethbridge woman smiles as she starts her 24-hour walkathon around Chinook Lake on the city’s northside, Saturday Oct. 10, 2020.
A Lethbridge woman completed a 24-hour walkathon around Lethbridge this past weekend raising money for the homeless population.
Kaelee Steele, 24-years-old, tied up her shoes and hit the sidewalks at 11 a.m. Saturday morning at Chinook Lake, walking around Lethbridge for her One Woman Walk for Our Homeless project. Covering 58 km and walking over 86,000 steps, Steele wrapped up her walk on Sunday at Henderson Lake.
Steele has been completing different projects to raise awareness of community issues. Some of these projects include shovelling driveways in the winter months, visiting different care homes and handing out flowers while chatting with senior citizens.
“This is my first 24-hour walkathon. I kind of just wanted to do something good for my community and show everyone in Lethbridge that you can just decide to do it one day. I feel that too much of social media these days are talking about people needing a certain amount of money to be happy. Whereas I just decided I wanted to do something good for the community while trying to raise money for a good cause,” said Steele.
Her goal was to raise $100 for every hour she walked, for a total of $2,400 to be donated to the Alpha House Lethbridge.
Steele had the idea of the 24-hour walkathon after seeing the negative stigma and lack of support from the community which has left many vulnerable people without basic necessitates.
“I choose to do a walkathon and raise money for the Alpha House Lethbridge because of the time of year we’re at, it’s Thanksgiving and especially with the COVID-19 situation having lots of people staying at home, places like [shelters] have been getting a lot less donations and are thought of less,” said Steele.
Steele has been preparing mentally and physically for the last two weeks before she completed her walk. With no distinct route in mind, it allowed Steele to feel what the homeless population experiences on a daily basis.
Throughout her journey, Steele was joined by family and friends who brought her food and supplies with some joining her parts of the walk.
Originally from Saskatoon, Steele located to Lethbridge after finishing school in Vancouver. Once she arrived here almost three years ago, Steele created the KaeleeHelps initiative where she completes different projects within the community to raise awareness and give back to others.
Alpha House Lethbridge provides the vulnerable population with basic necessitates. Rebecca Lane, program coordinator at Alpha House Lethbridge says donations such as this goes towards client care, helping a wide range of people.
“We have showers and we provide laundry services. They can get all their hygiene products from us, as well as clothing, such as socks and underwear.”
After completing her journey around Lethbridge on Sunday morning, Steele says she hopes to do another walkathon, but in the meantime she is continuing to plan more KaeleeHelps projects.
“I’m definingly planning on continuing going forward advocating and being more community aware and helping all these different causes throughout Lethbridge.”
Steele documented her journey to share with others. You can check out her 24-hour walkathon or upcoming projects by following her social media pages at KaeleeHelps.
As of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, she has raised $2,230. Anyone interested in donating can check out her GoFundMe page at One Woman Walk for Our Homeless.