Monday 12 July 2010

Prove Your Potential and Denny's Restaurant

Our sincerest thanks goes out the amazing staff and management at Denny's Restaurant in Coquitlam. The 10-day sales campaign raised $1,200 for the Prove your Potential campaign!!!!

THANK YOU!

Local Denny’s Restaurant Teams up with the Prove Your Potential Advocacy Campaign

Beginning June25th, 2010, Local Denny’s Restaurant on 500 Austin Ave will be joining hands with the Prove Your Potential Campaign to promote the campaign’s message and aid in fundraising for the BC Children’s hospital.

Kristina Kodjabacheva, a Coquitlam resident and 4th year Simon Fraser University student, found out about the Prove Your Potential Advocacy Campaign through a volunteer, who approached her at SFU.

“I try and support BC Children's Hospital whenever I can, so I bought the Prove Your Potential shirt, which has an awesome design representing a great concept,” says Kodjabacheva.

When I found out that this is an initiative organized by students, I was inspired and decided to help them reach their goal of selling 5000 shirts. I am a server at Denny's in Coquitlam, and knowing that our restaurant raises money for Children's Hospital on a regular basis throughout the year, I contacted my managers and proposed that we help the Prove Your Potential Campaign.”

Kodjabacheva has worked with Denny’s managers, Than Tran, Liz Hofer, and Jona Sumagu, to secure t-shirts for all the employees. They will be wearing and helping to sell t-shirts from June 25th, 2010 to July 5th, 2010. As an added incentive for Denny’s customers to help the cause, Tran has agreed to give every customer who buys t-shirts $5 off coupons.

“We’re hoping to raise $1000 for the Prove Your Potential cause,” says Kodjabacheva.

To help motivate employees, Kodjabacheva has created a motivational pamphlet and even secured sponsors to donate prizes to the employee who sells the most t-shirts.

“The team was really encouraged to know that there were individuals in the community who were taking huge initiatives to support the campaign in creative ways,” says Campaign Public Relations Director Joanna Si.

“Kristina and the Denny’s Management team have gone above and beyond what we could possibly have expected to help us inspire others to ‘Prove Your Potential’ and to support the BC Children’s Hospital.”

About the Prove Your Potential Campaign

Prove Your Potential is a two-fold advocacy project aiming to inspire youth and young professionals to prove their potential, and to raise money for a major health care facility for our region’s children and youth.

The organizing team is composed of a handful of busy university students and young professionals from diverse backgrounds. They realized that they had the skills, the resources, the creativity, and most importantly, the motivation to use potential to benefit society and thus started meeting last September to develop a project that would do so.

Kevin Ly, one of the team’s public relations coordinators recalled, “[f]rom the beginning, as a team, it was made clear that this would be more than a simple fundraiser. We all wanted the campaign to carry a message...” The team was drawn to the idea of potential, recognizing that it was something within everyone regardless of age, sex or race.

“Now we wanted to take it one step further,” said Project Co-Chair David Leung. “We knew we all had potential, but it wasn’t enough. We wanted people to prove it.”

With “Potential” being the overall theme and motivation behind the Campaign’s message, the team decided that all proceeds would go towards supporting the BC Children’s Hospital.

“We were all children at one special point in our lives. Each and every child has potential and should have the opportunity to do something amazing,” says Campaign Financial Director Clement Lam.

The Campaign launched on April 15, 2010 at the University of British Columbia’s Block party. The Campaign team has since organized and participated in several places across the Lower Mainland including , Metropolis at Metrotown, the Kitsilano community, Burrard Street, and Miracle Weekend.

Please visit our website at www.proveyourpotential.ca and our blog at proveyourpotential.blogspot.com.

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Miracle Weekend raised more than $16.5 million for the BC Children's Hospital Foundation!!!

Despite the rain, Miracle Weekend was a great success, raising a record $16,501,473 for the BC Children's Hospital!

Carmen Tam, Campaign Co-Chair, was busy helping out the night before at the Chinese Canadian Miracle Weekend Event.

The Prove Your Potential Advocacy Campaign Team was happy to be in the middle of all the energy and had a booth set up at the donors photo op. tent. The team was inspired by the dedication that so many community organizations and companies had in pooling their efforts to raise money for the Hospital.

Monday 7 June 2010

Prove Your Potential Sets up Shop in Metropolis



On May 21, 22, 28 and 29th, the Prove Your Potential made their way to Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby. We would like to thank our wonderful volunteers who despite some long shifts, kept up with the energy and fun.



We'd also like to thank The Burnaby Now for their support by featuring our event in their Saturday May 29th Paper!

Wednesday 12 May 2010

Prove Your Potential in Peru



Financial Director Clement Lam and Public Relations Coordinator Tony Chen took off on an impromptu adventure to Peru last week. During their journey the duo shared the Prove Your Potential message to travelling buddies and took their T-shirts to new heights!



Sunday 2 May 2010

Thank You for Making it out to the Prove Your Potential Launch Party!

Alex Insua, Andrew Clements, Jane Si and Volunteer Chris Cheung showing their Denny's coupons at the PYP Launch Party at POP Opera

We had a blast celebrating our launch at POP Opera. Thanks for all your support. An extra round of gratitude goes out to Denny's Restaurant in Coquitlam who provided us with Free Entree coupons for the event.

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Prove Your Potential Launch Party


The Prove Your Potential Campaign is excited to celebrate a successful sales launch with a night of good music, dancing and of course, good company. On April 30, 2010, Come out to POP Opera to help out a good cause AND blow off steam after exams. Guests are requested to wear trendy Prove Your Potential T-shirts to the event and help spread our message!

Ticket prices are only $10, which INCLUDES a Prove Your Potential T-shirt. For those who already purchased a t-shirt, a donation of any amount will secure you a ticket! We will not be able to sell tickets at the door and cover prices paid at the door will not go towards our cause so please ensure you get in touch with us prior to the event to get your ticket.

Dress Code:- We are hoping to get as many people in a t-shirt as we can in ONE ROOM, so please wear your t-shirt that night. Doors will open at 9:30pm, and we invite guests to arrive by 10pm some mingling beforehand and to pick up or buy additional t-shirts!

CONTACT AN EXEC BEFORE TICKETS RUN OUT:Tony: gotonychen@gmail.com Joanna: joanna@proveyourpotential.ca

Thanks SO much for all your support so far, we can't wait to see you there!!!

Saturday 24 April 2010

Prove Your Potential is featured in the Metro News!


The Prove Your Potential Campaign Team would like to thank the folks over at Metro Newspaper for covering our April 14-15 event! Check out the full article here.

One week until our next event! Stay tuned for more details on our April 30th, 2010 event!!

Thursday 15 April 2010

Smile! It's day two at the UBC Block Party

Photo courtesy of Sam Wu.

Day two of our Launch event! The team and our awesome volunteers are looking forward to another successful day of spreading the prove your potential message and fundraising for the BC Children's Hospital.

Today, look out for a certain mascot who will be wearing our t-shirt and hoping that you'll stop by for a photo. We hope you'll stop by and smile with our mascot for our photographer. To our wonderful volunteers and supporters who came by yesterday, thank you for your smiles and for 'putting smiles back where they belong'.

Come visit us and bring on those smiles!

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Check out one of the Prove your Potential booths!


Day one of the Campaign is officially here! The Prove your Potential team was busy yesterday preparing the details for today's launch. You'll find us and our volunteers at several locations across campus sharing our message and selling t-shirts. Come stop by at one of our booths or flag down one of our 'roamers' and say hello!

Tuesday 13 April 2010

The T-shirts are Here!!

Only one day left until the Prove Your Potential Campaign Launch at UBC! Kirby Wong, or Logistics Director was one of the first to get a hold of one of the t-shirts, hot off the printing press. Kirby looks pretty excited; as are we about seeing you there!



ProveYourPotential.ca official blitz this Wed, April 14 and Thurs, April 15 at various locations around UBC Campus. $10/shirt. ALL Proceeds go towards the BC Children's Hospital Foundation. **Buy a shirt. Raise Some Money. Prove Your Potential**

Thursday 1 April 2010

These boots were made for walkin'...and for fundraising!

If you had happened to pass by Langara College around noon today, you might have noticed the mob of superheroes and Playboy bunnies waving feather boas and dancing in shoes ranging from leopard-print stilettos to combat boots to fuzzy pink slippers.

No, it wasn’t somebody’s idea of an April Fools’ Day joke, moving Halloween to April 1st.

Actually, today was the First Annual High-Steppin’ Walk-a-Thon, a fundraising event that was organized by business students and the Support Our Student Campaign. SOS raises funds to assist students who can’t afford tuition due to emergency situations. All the money raised today will be matched by Langara College, go towards the Lloyd Nicholson Memorial Scholarship, and be awarded to students with outstanding musical ability.

Lloyd Nicholson, who had taught and worked at Langara College as a musical director for the last 25 years, passed away suddenly last October. The Lloyd Nicholson Memorial Scholarship was established this year as a tribute to his memory.

I talked to Krista Bergmann, one of the project managers, who described Lloyd as “very flamboyant, and he loved bright clothes and high heels.”

“That’s why we decided to create a fun, glitzy event to honour him,” she said.

“He was known as a kick-ass musical director in this country,” added Kathryn Shaw, the artistic director for Studio 58. “He brought out the best in the students, and we feel his loss profoundly.”

Despite the rain, everyone was in high spirits. After a heartwarming performance of “Springtime Happening” by Studio 58 students, a handful of toddlers donning Easter bunny ears kicked off the Walk-a-Thon. Everyone else followed suit in their funky costumes and shoes through the route that started at the front entrance of the school, wound its way inside the school and came back out again.

Nearly 100 walkers strutted down the red carpet, doing cartwheels, flexing their biceps and striking model poses—anything to impress a panel of three judges. The judges determined winners for categories such as craziest heel, craziest costume, most creative shoe and highest energy.

Erin Lapointe, who had a giant afro and wore a sparkly gold top, hoop earrings, large sunglasses, and five-inch platform heels (think Beyonce), believed she was definitely a “shoe-in” for craziest heel.

“They’re pretty painful,” she admitted after her fourth lap. “But the blisters and sore feet are worth it."

Erin did end up winning the prize for craziest heel, but not without first competing in a walk-off against another saucy contender in front of the judges.

Even after the event was over, the atmosphere was still pumped with energy as people danced to music mixed by a DJ. Standing there, eating complimentary chocolate cake, I was pretty amazed. Krista and ten other students had started planning this event in February. In merely two months, they had a glitzy, fun fundraiser going and even managed to invited people such as Kim Cathers from Project Run Way Canada to participate in the judging.

Although it started out as a final term project, the student organizers and the school’s administration want to bring it to the next level and make it an annual event so that they could keep fundraising for the school's bursury and scholarship campaign. After what I witnessed today, I'm pretty sure they can do it.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Welcome to the Prove your Potential Advocacy Campaign’s official blog!

It's starting to come together! We sent off our order to our suppliers, booked the venue for our first sales event and we’re anticipating our website launch in just a few short days.

We’ll be busy planning for our first sales appearance at the UBC Block Party on April 14, 2010!

In the mean time, stay tuned for our project updates and events, volunteer recruitment information, inspiring stories, and more.