With cardboard signs sporting slogans like "I have a home" and "My kids are safe," Gratitude Week volunteers aim to ride Thanksgiving sentiments toward real progress in the fight against homelessness.

If you work in Vancouver's downtown core, chances are you've probably already seen them in action -- volunteers of all stripes standing on street corners holding proclamations of gratefulness.

They're teasers for the upcoming Gratitude Week, an event two years in the making that hopes to affect real change in the city's struggle against homelessness.

And though a number of Vancouver charities are already doing precisely that, Gratitude Week is taking a different approach -- by reaching out to residents' sense of privilege.

"My own personal experience in Vancouver is the genesis of that," founder Ron Josephson, who immigrated to Canada from South Africa, told ctvbc.ca.

"The city has been just wonderful to me and my family," he said. "But you put that up against the fact that there are 2,600 people in this city sleeping on the street every night. It's just not right."

Josephson is a Barrister by trade, but has taken a two-month hiatus to focus on organizing the long lineup of Gratitude Week events.

Progress you can watch from home

From Thanksgiving Monday to Friday, October 16, volunteers will be collecting donations under the "Give a Dollar, Give a Damn" campaign.

Proceeds will go towards renovating two Downtown Eastside hotels: The currently vacant Pender Hotel (to be renamed the Gratitude Hotel) and the occupied, though desperately rundown Gastown Hotel.

Josephson says the construction will be videotaped and uploaded on to the organization's website.

"People can actually see where their dollar is going to go," he said. "They can see walls being built, they can see the construction of new homes."

Building a wall of thanks

On Monday, Gratitude Week will kick off as the Wall of Gratitude is erected in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

"We're giving Vancouverites the opportunity to put up a little message of their own sense of gratitude, and how lucky they are to be a part of Vancouver," Josephson said.

A number of notable guest speakers are expected over the week, including Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman.

The campaign also falls within B.C.'s Homelessness Action Week, though Josephson says it's purely coincidental.

"I do want to invite citizens to take part in Homelessness Action Week as well, they do wonderful work," he said. "And there are more opportunities for people outside Vancouver to be involved."

For more information, including a list of the week's events, visit the Gratitude Week and Homelessness Action Week websites.