Red Roof Retreat is now $300,000 shy of hitting its multi-million-dollar goal to build a new facility, after selling out its annual pasta dinner, held Sunday evening.
The fundraiser at Club Roma in St. Catharines, which drew 450 people, pushed Niagara-on-the-Lake’s special needs charity past $4 million in its capital campaign.
The money will support the building of a new, accessible respite house at the site of its old location in Virgil. The new facility will increase capacity by more than 50 per cent of families who rely on the organization’s services.
“When we started our capital campaign Feb. 14 of last year, and we started building in the late fall, everybody said we’re not going to have enough time to raise $4.3 million,” Hendricks said. “But I am happy to announce it as of yesterday, we broke the $4-million mark.”
The dinner also produced a record result from its table-bidding portion, which raised about $48,000 after a counting correction announced during the evening.
“Everything from this table bidding is going to go towards the capital campaign, right towards that last $300,000 or so that we need to accomplish,” Hendricks said.
Red Roof Retreat provides respite and recreational programs for children, youth and young adults with special needs and support for their families. The organization serves nearly 200 families.
The expansion replaces the charity’s current 1,100-square-foot bungalow on Concession 6 with a 5,700-square-foot building designed for larger programs and improved accessibility.
“The house is up, so now all the finishing work is going to start, and we’ve got about three or four hundred thousand dollars more to go for our campaign,” said founder and executive director Steffanie Bjorgan.
The larger building addresses pressure that Red Roof leaders have described for months: demand outgrowing the current house and waitlists persisting as more families seek respite care.
Sunday’s dinner was the first held at Club Roma after previous editions outgrew earlier spaces. Bjorgan said the move created room for the event’s biggest crowd to date.
Hendricks said the fundraiser has raised $1.29 million over its full run and more than $100,000 in each of the past three years.
“Our first annual pasta dinner was at St. Vincent de Paul, and we raised about $1,500 that year,” Hendricks said. “We’ve come a long way since then.”
Red Roof volunteer Leslie Mann said many donors return for the pasta dinner year after year because they want to see the project completed.
“There’s this drive now to get the new building finished and funding for that,” Mann said. “Last year there was 300 people, and now, there’s a waiting list.”
Red Roof previously said it hoped to open the expanded facility in 2026 if fundraising stayed on pace. Sunday’s result leaves the organization in the final stretch of that campaign.
