St. John's' first Night Light Walk highlights need for housing for those facing intimate partner violence

More and more women are facing intimate partner violence and earlier this year the province declared it an epidemic. The Iris Kirby House strives to provide a place for those women to go and on Thursday dozens of people gathered at Bannerman Park to raise money and awareness. This is the first time it's been in Newfoundland. It's called the Royal LePage Night Walk in aid of the Shelter Foundation. It's a night walk that we're gonna go through the city with all the, we're all going to have torches and light bands and we're going to walk through Georgetown, down around downtown St. John's and back here to raise money for the Iris Kirby Center. We're very grateful for it. Royal LePage Atlantic Homestead has been an incredible support for Iris Kirby House for many years, so we thought this was a very welcoming activity to do and with 15 different communities participating across Canada at the same time, it's just an incredible event to be a part of. So far we're close to making our goal of 25,000. We've been doing this for the Iris Kirby for the last 20 years. We've been a big supporter and we continue to be a big supporter and we love doing it. Nightlight Walk participants are hoping that events like this bring awareness to the issue of intimate partner violence. But the Iris Kirby House says more effort is needed to create housing and other programs to make sure that survivors know they're not alone. Ivy Cole, CBC News, St. John's.