Covenant House Vancouver

I had a great experience recently that reminded me why I came to work for Covenant House almost 10 years ago.

I am a Senior Development Officer here at Covenant House and in my role I spend a lot of time explaining in detail how important our programs are. I use numbers, graphs, percentages and tours through both of our buildings so our donors can fully understand how important their donations are to our young peoples' success.

I had a meeting and tour planned with a prospective donor who was considering recommending Covenant House for a very significant gift. We had set the meeting after a phone conversation and they were interested but they wanted to meet prior to any commitments. The day of the meeting, I went downstairs to meet my guests at the front desk, but when I arrived they were talking with one of our young people. When the conversation finished, I introduced myself and my guest said, "No need for the tour or the meeting; we're sold."

We did go upstairs to talk and it turns out that while they were waiting in our lobby a young man asked them if they were donors and they answered, "yes we are." Our young person then said "Thank you, because this place saved my life". A short conversation had continued from there with the young man explaining his trip from back east and the difficulties he has overcome and how thankful he was that Covenant House was here.

This short and honest exchange had a profound impact. It proved to our donors that their support is appreciated. It allowed this young person the opportunity to say thank you for all that they have received, thanks to people they don't usually meet.

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Congratulations to Nicole whose stark and eloquent comic appeared on our blog a few months ago, for her recent winning of Ve'ahavta's 9th annual Creative Writing Contest.  Out of 750 submissions, Nicole placed 4th which is an amazing accomplishment.

The submissions were judged by a list of writers and media personalities. In 2010, the judges included humanitarian and actress Mia Farrow, Steve Paikin of TVO, Wendy Mesley of CBC, and producer and television host George Tsioutsioulas. The winners receive various prizes, including a creative writing course at The University of Toronto and The University of British Columbia, along with the top cash prize donated by Kernel's Popcorn for $1500.

Below is Nicole's winning submission:

 

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