Oh the majesty and grandeur that is Stanley Park! No visit to Vancouver would be complete without at least a drive through Stanley Park. But few visitors to Vancouver are aware of how expansive the park really is. At just over 400 hectares or 1000 acres – it’s huge! Not sure how huge 400 hectares really are? As a frame of reference, most people are familiar with Central Park in NYC. Well, Stanley Park is 10% larger then Central Park, making it the largest urban park in North America and arguably the most beautiful urban park in the world!

Collette visits the world. The Collette Foundation aims to make the world a better place; to conserve beautiful spots like Stanley Park; to offer the children of the world brighter futures. The Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPES) “promotes awareness of and respect for the natural world and plays a leadership role in the stewardship of Stanley Park through collaborative initiatives in education, research and conservation.” That’s their mission. And I’m thrilled that we are part of it. The educational programs that teach children about science and nature and conservation is part of a bigger promise that the Collette Foundation has made. Travelers have been so excited to learn from a SPES member about the important programming the society is responsible for within the Park.

It’s a beautiful park. Stunning, really. But knowing about the good work happening there, knowing how the children are benefitting from its existence, makes it all the more beautiful.

After last year’s flood, our friends at Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC) have gone through a lot — and based on this letter I just received, it seems they’ve only come out stronger — and continue to inspire through their actions. Check it out:

Dear Siobhan,

With best wishes,
Andrea and the JWOC team

Volunteers from the Collette Foundation once again joined forces with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America for a great cause. In the past, we have worked with them in Pawtucket, Rhode Island as well as on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. We teamed up in Las Vegas to create care packages for our troops in Afghanistan. 57 volunteers from Collette joined 13 youth from the Boys & Girls Club for this GREAT cause. Kelly Nevins, the Director of our Tour Manager department, writes about the experience:

At our annual Tour Manager Symposium, we decided to partner with the Boys & Girls Club of Las Vegas to put together care packages for our troops overseas. 13 youth partnered with teams of tour managers to “shop” from our supply of care package goodies, create thank you cards and decorate the shipping boxes with various pictures and messages of goodwill. Some teams were quick out of the gate to put their box together, but soon realized that the objective wasn’t who could put their packages together the quickest. It took about 1.5 hours to fill 26 boxes, equally divided between male and female troops. Paper airplanes were created, as well as “lace” paper cards and origami that went into the boxes, as well as cards with heartfelt messages.

While the tour managers and kids were working together, they got to know each other. Some of the teens faced difficult pasts and experiences on the homefront but each one had a wonderful, positive attitude. We sang happy birthday to one of the girls who was turning 18 the next day. We also shared our pizza and snacks, which of course, all the teens loved! As boxes were being packaged, some of the tour managers and youth started a paper airplane contest to see whose planes would fly the furthest. There was lots of laughter… it was incredibly rewarding to work with them, to see them enjoy making an impact on others through this project.

Later in the afternoon, the folks from the USO came by to say a few words about how much the troops appreciate it when they receive a box from “home.” Even just the smell of what’s in the box brings smiles to their faces because it smells like home to them. In each box, we had included personal care items like shaving cream and body lotion, as well as snack foods and cereals. The folks from the USO were laughing at the outside of the boxes, which had been decorated with lots of colors, self “portraits” of the teams who put the boxes together and other fun pictures that were sure to bring a smile to the faces of our military personnel.

After the project, several tour managers emphasized how happy they were to do this service during our busy training week. They said it was like a breath of fresh air and a truly humbling experience. I can’t wait to see what we do next time. I sincerely hope that it teams us up once again with the  wonderful Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

One of my colleagues in the UK office, Paul, recently enjoyed his time at the Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre, based at Mount Vernon Hospital, near our office, that supports people affected by cancer — if “enjoyed” can really be the right word when describing spending time faced with such a harsh reality as people suffering from such an awful illness. He wrote to me after his volunteer time:

I visited LJMC yesterday morning and spent my time helping out in the office working on administrative tasks. There are a lot of workers involved in the Centre as many of the staff are part time or volunteers. It’s always interesting to meet up with new people there as they all have different experiences of working with people affected by cancer. It’s quite an eye-opener to realize how cancer affects so many people and how indiscriminate it really is. Being able to provide support to such a wide range of people is incredibly rewarding.

– Paul

In the UK office, we are all so committed to helping at the centre — to make each day more bearable for the patients there, to give them something to smile about, to alleviate some of their fear, to give them an ear or a shoulder… it’s not always easy and to Paul’s point, it is an eye-opener. And that is why we do it.

Towards the end of the year, we received an urgent request from Rick Jones at Mi Casa for Children and Elderly, in regards to our project site — El Oasis Del Niño in Querétaro, Mexico. They recently had an inspection of all the electrical wiring in the building, and found out that it needed complete rewiring. This was marked as a major safety hazard; regulations have gotten much stricter after a very bad fire in a preschool facility took the lives of over 40 children.

When Rick Jones told me that the inspection revealed that the building at El Oasis Del Niño had not been updated since it was constructed, over six decades ago, the Mexico team sprung to action; we wanted to help out as much as we could, and definitely wanted to be able to start this important project before the end of the year. Rick Jones was able to find another group to help commit funds as well, a group of young men from the area who wanted to help, and held raffles to raise some money. With their support as well as ours, the school will be able to pay for the full rewiring of the building and we can rest assured the children will be in a much safer environment. What a great start to the New Year!

I’m so excited that the Egypt project is officially up and running. We are working now with a great organization — the Coptic Orphans — which has helped more than 20,000 children since its inception more than 20 years ago.

The “Coptic Orphans” are wonderful, disadvantaged children at risk of severe poverty and injustice and we are thrilled to now be a part of their lives and hopefully help them find their way toward bright and better futures.

Our Egypt team has lately been sponsoring five children from Coptic Orphans. Through pen-pal letters, we are introduced to their personalities as they tell us about their hobbies and hopes and so far it has been a lot of fun for all of us.

We are also funding the Coptic Orphans’ Valuable Girl Project, a great Big Sister type program that encourages young disadvantagesd girls in the organization to apply themselves to their school work and aim to attend college and create (and believe in attaining) dreams — something many girls in some areas of Egypt are discouraged from.

To learn more about this great new initiative, check out the new Egypt project page.

At our annual company-wide New Year meeting this past Friday, Collette’s executive team and directors shared successes of 2011 with employees (including the banner year our Foundation enjoyed) — and they also launched a new Collette Foundation video that emphasizes the recent merging of our former local foundation (the Alice I. Sullivan Foundation) with our internationally-focused Collette Foundation. Now the two foundations are one, unifying our philanthropic mission. This video gets to the heart of some of local initiatives. Enjoy!

Helping Families Enjoy the Holidays

I just received a WONDERFUL letter from my friends at RISE (Julia, Stacy, Lisa, Erica and Lizzie) that I wanted to share:

Dear Collette Foundation Friends,

We cannot say Thank You enough for your generous donation to our RISE families for Christmas. We were able to buy close to 200 gifts for RISE students and family members, 5 gift certificates to local grocery stores at $100 apiece, and give away 5 baskets of household items such as laundry detergent, toothpaste, dish soap, cleaning supplies, etc. Five RISE families were supported individually with gifts including blankets and sheets, winter gear, toys and games for the family, art supplies, an iPod and more! The parents were so thankful, many of them saying that they didn’t know what they would have done for Christmas this year if it were not for this donation.

Messages like this are so fulfilling to read. We are very humbled and excited to head into another year of partnering with RISE.

Great news! The Collette Foundation has successfully helped earn The SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation a spot as a member on the Global Giving site for having passed the Winter Challenge we wrote about in late November- to raise $4000 in just 30 days to support this very special US project. We needed to show more than 50 unique donors donated to this worthy cause as well.

We surpassed that number and raised $4,812 from 82 donors! And counting!

This wonderful club seeks to break the cycle of poverty for the children who visit here for leadership training, homework assistance, a safe haven and positive guidance. I am so happy to see that it is going to get the financial boost that it deserves.

THANK YOU to all who helped us meet (and surpass) our goals! Visit the Global Giving site to learn more about this great mission.

Wishing you and yours a healthy, happy New Year — and a truly wonderful 2012 from all of us at the Collette Foundation.