This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I can help out my community in a way that wouldn’t take up too much of my time. I thought I’d start by blogging about two organizations I’ve found just by surfing the web and social media accounts.
1) Building Opportunities with Business (BOB)
On first glance, it looks like the site belongs to an organization that focuses on sustainable practices in the downtown Eastside. The organization, Building Opportunities with Business, has a three-fold mandate that includes helping both the inner-city community and supporting a business network called The Green Inner-city Cluster, which is open to any business or individual that has an interest in reducing environmental impact. The site reads: “BOB’s mandate is to support the development and growth of green or sustainable businesses while also facilitating job creation and workforce development for this emerging type of industry.” When you click on their video, you find out how helpful BOB has been both on the business front and improving employment. Millennium Construction and the City of Vancouver donated $750,000 to train people in the construction industry for a large project.
BOB also assisted the Gallery Gachet with development and investing in a project with W2. Even the promo video was produced by Intersections Media, a program that gives inner-city youth film and video-making skills.
I’m surprised that this organization hasn’t had much media coverage, but their blog is pretty updated so I encourage you to check it out and get involved, especially if you live in the area.
At first I was confused about what Because I Am A Girl did – it looks like it could be a video entry contest that gives proceeds to an organization. But that is the name of the organization, which aims to simply change girls’ lives and empower them with positive reinforcement. You can donate to them through Plan Canada, sign a petition, and they just finished blogging on their cross-Canada tour in search of girls and women to interview to share inspiring stories about Canadian girls. You can even text HOPE to 30333 to donate $5.
The organization has celebrity supporters (gold-medal skiier Jennifer Heil, country musician Tara Oram, and Bollywood actress Lisa Ray) and you can also buy t-shirts to support them, which make great gifts for girls during the holidays.
Check out Because I Am A Girl to read more inspirational stories about girls making a difference and learn how you can get involved.
3) Love Letters to the Future
In my haste to finish this blog on Thursday, I completely forgot another organization I wanted to talk about – Love Letters to the Future. LLTTF invites everyone across the world to send messages about the importance of the climate change issue to the people it will matter the most to – the future. People can text, share a photo, or upload videos, which will be added to their archives. In addition, the top 100 highest voted messages will be put into a time capsule to be opened 100 years from now. The entries will be put into the capsule in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 13, 2009.
I have a lot of passion about the issue of climate change that I wouldn’t know where to start in my message. But you can do one simply by going to their website and finding out how you can contribute.
