Highlight of today: Getting to know the amazing people at Variety
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My friend Jeff Duncan invited me to this year’s Variety Show of Hearts, which happened a few months ago. It was a televised fundraising event and I was happy to volunteer my time, as they work for a cause that I strongly believe in: They provide support for children with disabilities (http://ift.tt/1eJiMiA).
I was already impressed with their work, and many of my friends and CEFA families have benefited directly from their help, for their own children. Today, however, I reached a higher level of admiration for these folks.
Jeff insisted we all meet for lunch as he saw a potential synergy between CEFA and Variety. He was so amazing, he even organized it and paid for the whole lunch (that man has to get a medal soon), can you believe it?
So we met, and first of all, they were such interesting people with interesting lives, I was very tempted to set our agenda aside, order a few drinks and just chat about life instead! This will have to be done another day. They are really passionate about what they do, they have clear goals for the next three years, they had done their research on our schools and on potential projects we could work on together, and they had this incredible enthusiasm for their organization! It is not often that I meet people like that outside of my CEFA, EO, YPO and personal friends circles, so I was really blown away.
We talked about where the gaps were between what families with children with disabilities need, and what the government can provide, and they also talked about a sector that is very near and dear to my heart: children who have no home and have nowhere to go and no resources. They are expanding their programs to collaborate with organizations that work with these children, such as, I just found out, St-Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. They worked with a new Autism Centre in Richmond, they worked with great organizations.
This coming year is their 50th anniversary (and CEFA’s 20th – yay!), and we are hard at work trying to figure out how we can help each-other. For instance, they can help us bring awareness to these issues in our schools, and we can help them fundraise, or even help in other ways (more on this later).
At CEFA, one of our Core Values is Contribution, and it is intertwined in all of the aspects of our curriculum. Children feel needed, feel important, and know that they are learning BECAUSE they are counted on to make a difference. They expect that much from themselves, and it an incredible gift to give them. Our children, as young as 1 and 2, and our teachers, have worked on projects like building schools in developing countries, contributing to libraries worldwide, sent one of our teachers to her native city in Japan, when the tsunami hit, with supplies, gifts, clothes, gifts, and kept in touch with her through e-mails and video… The list goes on. These children feel that what they do matters, makes a difference.
I think that if we developed a curriculum piece around awareness, acceptance, empathy, Variety would be the perfect fit. I have a lot of ideas already, and we will start working together as soon as next week!
I love CEFA so much! I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to inspire children to contribute, to live their lives with purpose, to live it to the fullest!
I can’t wait to see how incredible this collaboration will turn out for them, for our teachers, and for Variety! Definitely the highlight of today!
This is at their show earlier this year. Oh, and if you have any suggestions or ideas on how we could collaborate, please leave a comment or e-mail me at natacha@cefa.ca!