As we are halfway through January 2017, I wanted to reflect on a few accomplishments I made in 2016 that made me feel really good. One thing I really wanted to do last year was to try and do some volunteer work for some great causes. Unfortunately, with the way my business boomed and becoming pregnant, I wasn’t able to do that. I did volunteer doing hair with Help Portraits for a few hours but I wasn’t feeling that great that day (emotionally and physically with my pregnancy). I did still show up and do what I could though and made some women feel very special.
Because my business did florish last year, I was able to help out in other ways than volunteering my time. I was able to give generous donations, directly and indirectly, to a couple great organizations and causes. Raw Beauty Talks and the Gift of Giving. Not only that, but I donated gift cards and services to various events for door prizes and silent auction gifts to help raise money towards whatever charity they chose. So in a way, I have volunteered my time, just at a later date when those come to redeem their prizes and I can work more around my schedule!
Raw Beauty Talks is about beauty, confidence and self love. They produce content, media & events that help women feel good about themselves! At the Dare to Dream Soiree that happened in November 2016 put on by Genicca Global Group, Raw Beauty Talks talked about their program “Free to Be”.
Free To Be is a research-based positive body image program for youth in grades six to eight developed by Renae Regehr and powered by RAW Beauty Talks. Free To Be empowers boys and girls to reach their full potential by developing media literacy awareness, cultivating individual strengths, building resilience to social pressures that impact body image, and nurturing a positive social environment.
Sessions are interactive and include small and large group discussions, role-playing, brainstorming, sharing, and positive activism activities. Free To Be is taught by a trained facilitator in 5-7 sessions or can be adapted into shorter presentations.
It felt really good to donate through the Dare to Dream Soiree to help empower youth and it was really great to hear them speak at the event. It was also great to help out at this event and I look forward to being more involved this year. Don’t miss the event this year!
The Gift of Giving is something a wonderful entrepreneur, Danielle Wiebe of Vancity Business Babes, organizes every year. Danielle collects donations and items to put in a gift bag to give back to women at Christmas time. She holds a fundraiser to attract more people out to learn about what she is doing in hopes that they will also donate and help the less fortunate. They partnered with several shelters in the greater Vancouver area in hopes of giving each one of the women a gift for Christmas. It was great to be part of this and give these women, that may not otherwise receive anything for Christmas, a lovely gift with items that they could actually use. Great job Danielle, I look forward to contributing again next year!
My team and I had over 40 weddings booked last year and it was a pleasure to be part of all those weddings! We hope all of our brides had an absolutely beautiful wedding and huge thank you to those that have shared photos and videos with us, we love to see them! And thank you to all those that have left us wonderful reviews, it’s so great to know that we are doing a fabulous job! Even with the growing pains we experienced last year, we were able to keep everything going smoothly and everyone was happy in the end (at least to my knowledge!). We look forward to being part of many more weddings this year! I can’t thank my team enough for such a wonderful year last year, you are all extremely talented and can’t wait to work with you again this year!
We always welcome feedback from all of our past clients so we can give you what YOU want and will continue to improve our services and products. With every booking with us, you are each contributing to the various organizations that I will be donating to again this year. We are about giving back to the community and it feels great and you should feel great too! Why? Because GIVING BACK IS SEXY! (Thank you to my friend Genicca for that quote) I haven’t quite decided on which organizations to work closely with yet, but I will let you know soon!
All the best in 2017!