The Give Project

I heard about The GIVEproject last year from Ed and Eland, two of the three amazing guys that came up with it and have been a major fan ever since. My GIVEband and the idea behind it inspires me each and every day to do what I can to change the lives of those I encounter. At Christmas, my friend Monica had volunteered to be a part of handing out turkey dinner to the less fortunate on the Downtown East Side (DTES) of Vancouver and invited me to join her. This was something that I had thought about participating in many times, but had yet to take action on. This year was different. With my GIVEband as a gentle reminder on my wrist, I grabbed my friend Amanda and we joined in. We all found it to be an extremely rewarding experience. 

Since then, Monica and I have had many a discussion on what else we could do to try and make a difference in peoples lives for the better. We recently came up with and executed a plan to make and hand out sandwiches on the DTES with a few of our friends. Covering the costs ourselves made us very aware of the price of the items we were purchasing, so we went to the No Frills Grocery on Broadway. Abraham, a wonderful employee there was kind enough to provide us with a substantial discount on the bread we were purchasing after a short chat with our friend Lori, who if given the time, probably could have talked the store into giving us everything for free… next time. I made sure to pass on my GIVEband and explain the Project to Abraham after his kindness to us, to which he then explained to us that he had many friends in the DTES and was very grateful for what we were doing. It was an awesome thing to come to the realization that his GIVE to us was also a GIVE back to him. The cyclical nature of kindness continues to astound me and I look forward to continuing in PassingTheGIVE as much as I can!