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Half a million blankets have been donated to a B.C. charity

Blanket BC has received over 500,000 blankets since the organization was founded in 2005
Cameron Thomson
Cameron Thomson
Blanket BC (1)
Gregory Ould is the co-founder of Blanket BC, an organization that has donated over 500,000 blankets to Vancouver's homeless population.Gregory Ould

October 5, 2005, Gregory Ould spoke with a homeless man outside of a theatre in Chinatown, that conversation sparked the creation of an organization that would go on to help thousands.

“I could use a blanket… to survive the night.” the man said to Ould. 

Ould immediately went and bought the warmest blanket he could find and gave it to him. The reaction the man gave inspired Ould to tell his then one-year-old son Ben about the experience. 

"Wouldn't it be cool if you and I went out like Batman and Robin – that caught his attention – and instead of fighting crime we're fighting the cold and we're fighting loneliness," Ould recounted in an interview with Vancouver Is Awesome.

Blanket BC (2)Ben and Gregory Ould are the co-founders of Blanket BC. By Gregory Ould

Fifteen years later Ben is the co-founder of Blanket BC and alongside his father they are celebrating their organization's largest milestone to date and its 15 year anniversary. Over those 15 years the organization has donated hundreds of thousands of blankets to those coldest on the streets of Vancouver. This mission couldn’t be stopped by a world-wide pandemic either.

Even through the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Blanket BC still held Drive on the Line, one of Canada’s largest blanket drives. The campaign is held the third week of November and has been for the past 11 years. This year the drive went ahead virtually with volunteers driving to houses only to pick up freshly washed blankets waiting on doorsteps in plastic bags.

Despite the hardship 2020 has brought for so many, it has been Blanket BC’s most successful year in terms of blanket donations with an estimated 15,000 blankets straining the organization’s storage capacities.

"All of our lockers are completely filled, we can't give away more blankets than we're getting, it's ridiculously awesome," 

"I just have this immense amount of pride... sometimes things just leave me speechless and this is one of them," Ould said, his voice cracking with emotion.

This success was in part thanks to a recent partnership with U-Lock mini storage which served as a drop off point for people donating blankets to the organization. 

While blanket donations were at an all time high this year, the organization did not escape COVID-19 completely. Blanket BC had to cease operations for eight months of 2020 which turned the thumbscrews on the organization’s cheque book. In response Blanket BC created a fundraiser to recoup some of those losses. The fundraiser’s goal of $15,000 has nearly been met with $13,000 being donated at the time of this writing.

"Being able to hit this number means a lot to us because it means that we were successful in reaching a mass amount of people and helping out tens of thousands of people over the years," Ould said. "It feels good because it has been a personal challenge. This just means that what we're doing means a lot to the community at large."

To the people who have supported Blanket BC monetarily or with blankets, Ould has this to say.

"Bless you all. Thank you," he said. "In some way Blanket BC is a vessel of hope and of love by providing people's warmth. It's not Blanket BC per se, it's the people, we're representing the people."
 

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