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.
