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We’re very grateful for the support we received from our #BGCbesties at @goeasyltd—thanks for ensuring that each and every amazing kid at our Clubs has access to healthy meals and snacks through the BGC Summer Food Fund! #OpportunityChangesEverything #BGCNutritionPartner #UnbelievableImpact
Every year, we look forward to a super special holiday breakfast with our #BGCBesties at @bestbuycanada, where we celebrate hope, generosity and the Best Buy team`s annual holiday hamper donation. This year, Best Buy supported 29 of BGC`s Club families with some holiday magic and food security for the season. We are SO grateful for this partnership, and the amazing team at Best Buy! #ThatsUnbelievableImpact #OpportunityChangesEverything
As we step into 2025, we are thinking hard about how we can continue to provide safe, supportive spaces for kids and youth when they aren’t at home or at school because the reality is, most parents can’t be home with their kids ALL of the time.
BGC Truth #3: “Free” services are undervalued, considered to be lower quality, and overlooked (or sometimes considered to be “for someone else”).
At BGC, the biggest risk to kids during their out of school hours is being UNSUPERVISED! Childhood is when humans learn all the lessons for a successful life. When kids and youth spend all of their out of school time unsupervised, the reality is that the choices they make can do serious harm (to themselves, the community, and their futures). Every kid deserves high quality options and opportunities during their out of school time. Asking families to pay what they can, gives kids and youth the place where they choose how they spend their time – from a HUGE variety of developmentally appropriate, fun, and engaging options with peers – and where they are supervised but don’t feel like they are. This is also known as SAFE. This also gives the families BGC serves the gift of dignity and respect as they do the very hard work of parenting.
This time of year, there’s something special about feeling surrounded by people who care about you. That’s the sense of belonging we want EVERY kid and youth to feel all year long, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Families pay what they can when they choose BGC Clubs or Camp. To be clear, we DO ask them to contribute, and the vast majority do! This is our approach because we know that requiring people to prove their hardships, struggles, and challenges causes harm, shame, and trauma. We also know that families WANT to pay what they can because they value the benefits their kids and youth receive.
Meanwhile, we know there are people who will only make a donation to BGC if we provide proof that our families can’t pay (or are “in need”), and that just makes us work harder than ever, including by respectfully telling the truth (like now), so we can attract the support of every person we know who cares about kids and youth and their promising futures.
Please consider making a gift to BGC this holiday season and help us give kids and youth a safe place to belong all year long, no questions asked. 💚 Visit bgcbc.ca to learn more!
As we "wrap" up another year of UNBELIEVABLE impact, we are celebrating the fact that kids are not only are kids spending MORE time at our Clubs each day, but they’re also coming MORE often, and staying LONGER through their childhoods and high school. And that’s something to feel good about! Because, when kids come to Club, what they are really doing is developing the skills they need to have healthy relationships, becoming leaders in and out of Club, learning about healthy behaviours so they can make better choices for themselves, and gaining an excitement for lifelong learning. And, of course, having a whole lot of fun. That`s what BGC is ALLLL about! #UnbelievableImpact #OpportunityChangesEverything
As we wrap up another year of unbelievable impact at BGC, we want to tell you the truth (and we think you can handle it!).
You may or may not have consciously noticed dialogue out in the world about “at-risk” and “underprivileged” kids because societally, we’ve been trained to think about things that way. But imagine how it would feel for a kid to realize they’ve been defined or labelled that way! When kids and youth come to BGC, we want them to feel like they are amazing, and to feel seen and heard for who they REALLY are. So, we hold ourselves accountable to speak about them in strengths-based ways.
And the truth is, that makes our job harder. There are a lot of people out there who are waiting for or feeling like they need us to use those words. Before they support us, they want to hear the sad stories and the difficult things that kids and youth go through. By choosing to focus on the positive, we might not get the attention of those people.
Every day at BGC, we see the AMAZING and POSITIVE changes in kids and youth as they grow up because they have friends and mentors at their Club that see them for who they truly are. And that`s something we ALL deserve. And, we hope that by sharing this truth with you, you might choose to support BGC`s kids and youth this holiday season. 💚 Visit bgcbc.ca to learn more or make a gift
@cibc Miracle Day™ is a proud tradition that has helped to improve the lives of children around the world since it began in 1984. Every year, on the first Wednesday in December, CIBC Capital Markets team and CIBC Wood Gundy Investment Advisors donate their fees and commissions to help kids in need. Since its inception, Miracle Day has raised more than $278 million for children`s charities globally.
Miracle Day is part of CIBC Foundation, which aims to create a world without limits to ambition and a more equitable society. It exemplifies CIBC’s genuinely caring belief that, together as a community with shared vision, we can overcome obstacles and emerge more united, resilient, prosperous, and ready for the future.
BGC is SO grateful to receive support from this AMAZING day. Thank you, CIBC, for believing in the amazingness of kids! #OpportunityChangesEverything #UnbelievableImpact #CIBCMiracleDay #MiracleDay
There`s no better way to get into the holiday spirit than the @visitrmbc holiday train! Thank you to our #BGCBesties at The Railway Museum of BC for hosting our kids and youth, and to our #BGCBesties at @panago_pizza for supplying us with LOTS of tasty pizza! #UnbelievableImpact
