IQALUIT - With a cheque for $10,000 and the promise of more projects to come, the Yellowknife YWCA made a difference for the Qimaavik Women's Shelter in Iqaluit last week.

With a big cheque and bigger smiles, Lyda Fuller, of the Yellowknife YWCA, presents Napatchie McRae, from the Qimaavik Women's Shelter, with a cheque for $10,000. YWCA officials were in Iqaluit last week to study the idea of a new homeless shelter for women in Iqaluit. - Kent Driscoll/NNSL photo

Called the "Fill the Freezer" campaign, the $10,000 is exclusively to collect country food for the shelter.

"That $10,000 will get us more in country food than it would at the stores," said Napatchie McRae from Qimaavik. "We spend $4,000 a month at one local store.

"Now I am able to tell the hunters to go catch caribou, seals and char to fill our freezer. We don't want to take the country food diet away from our clients and children," said McRae.

That money will be used to reimburse hunters for gas and ammunition.

All the cash was raised from individual YWCA chapters across Canada. McRae travelled south to a conference with Fuller, and the other YWCA boards were open to helping.

"People in southern Canada are interested," said Lyda Fuller, executive director of the Yellowknife YWCA.

Fuller was visiting Iqaluit last week for a study to help build a new shelter for homeless women in Iqaluit.

"Another 20 beds is where we would like to start," said Fuller. "We have been looking at all the buildings, underused, unused, lease or purchase. We are developing a plan to address homelessness with women."

Fuller first visited Qimaavik last fall, and when McRae gave her a tour, she noticed the near-empty freezer.

"We just said 'big freezer, not much food,'" said Fuller.

A YWCA committee has been formed in Iqaluit to work towards a new shelter and other initiatives.

"I'm so excited we will have a compatriot in the North," said Fuller. "We recognize a need all over the North. Iqaluit, like Whitehorse and Yellowknife, is a magnet. Right now we will concentrate on Iqaluit."

Qimaavik Women's Shelter serves more than 400 women and children each year.