Meritorious Service Medal
- Awarded on: November 25, 2004
- Invested on: May 30, 2005
John A. Van Luven, M.S.M., Surrey, B.C.
Meritorious Service Medal (civil division)
Executive director of the St. James Community Service Society, John Van Luven is the driving force behind numerous community projects that benefit more than 3 700 disadvantaged people each month in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Determined to assist those who are marginalized by society in one of Canada’s poorest urban areas, Mr. Van Luven established a number of organizations including the North Shore Youth Safe House, a crisis-prevention and resource centre, which opened in 2002 to provide shelter to youth at risk, and the St. Elizabeth Home, an emergency refuge and transition house for women and children, initiated in 2003.