SUDBURY -- The Orange Door Campaign is an annual fundraising initiative put on by Home Depot Canada, and it’s aimed at raising money to help prevent and end youth homelessness.

On Tuesday, one of the beneficiaries, the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth, said "thank you" for the support.

The centre, known as SACY, is an organization that addresses the needs for marginalized young people.

“With the money that we are getting from the Orange Door Campaign, we will be able to provide a washer and dryer, so youth can finally clean their clothes. We can remove a lot of the bed bugs that might be in their clothing, that’s become such a large issue among the low income housing that our youth live in,” said SACY executive director Julie Gorman.

The Home Depot store in Sudbury raised $25,000, the most of any store across the country. 

“Home Depot believes that we are stronger together, so working with our community partners to give every person an opportunity and we don’t want to see any youth homeless at all, typically on any given night it’s about 6,000 youth that are left homeless across Canada,” said Yvette Davidson, the Home Depot Sudbury store manager.

Jason Gagne, an operations assistant at the store, says staff and customers were all on board during the campaign. 

“We raised this through not only internal support but we also reached out to our local shoppers who donated two dollars for every transaction that went through our till,“ he said.

To say thank you, SACY put on a barbecue on Wednesday for the Home Depot staff.

The donation from the Orange Door Campaign will be used to renovate a space at the centre and to support programs that help young people. 

“I know there is a lot of people saying 'there is not much of a homeless problem in Sudbury.' Yes there is. If you have one youth renting an apartment and he’s got 8 or 9 friends sleeping on the floor, these kids are homeless, they can’t afford to eat, ” said SACY outreach worker Fred Dunham.

Last year, SACY helped over 270 young people with housing, counseling, and suppers, giving them a sense of family and a safe space.