There is something amazing about thinking that TW4H has developed from a feeling that something needs to be done, to an initiative reaching out, to a growing group of enthusiastic volunteers in less than a month. I think we are all going to remember being a part of the group for a really long time.
As we approach the weekend, things have been fairly quiet. Elliot has been putting up bios for some of the service providers. I am going to distribute our poster in a couple of gatherings I will be at weekend. Let’s keep up the efforts get the word out there. Speaking of widening the circle of those who know about us, we have also been working on translating our “about” page into French so that we can reach more people. I find this especially appropriate as a gesture of good will towards the Haitian community in Toronto. I think it’s just nice for them to see something in French on our website if they pay us a visit.
On the news front, the BBC reported today that the missionaries arrested in relation with child abduction attempts have been denied conditional release and will remain in jail till their next hearing. Also reported in the same story was Mr. Clinton’s visit to Port-au-Prince. In addition to the supplies of food and water being distributed, there will be a significant delivery of tents to help out with people who are sleeping in the open.
That’s it for today folks, have a great weekend everyone.
Today the TW4H logo continued to self-propagate out of control, non-stop all over the cyberspace. The word is getting out thanks to your help and more and more people are finding out about us. Great job everyone!
Let us start with Karen who wrote about us on her blog today. Karen is not only offering many of her talents to the group including vocal performance, event coordination, and ESL tutoring but also has used her blog to let people know about us. Thanks for such catchy and enthusiastic promotion of TW4H Karen!
We all know someone who got a mortgage, who is thinking of getting a mortgage, or who will get a mortgage. Chris, also known as Son of a Broker, is our favourite mortgage broker and he has posted a video on his blog about TW4H and his commitment to this initiative. He will be donating $200 from every mortgage, irrespective of the size or type of mortgage. Thanks Chris!
Sophie wrote about TW4H on her blog as well. She points out how TW4H is beneficial for both clients and service providers and provides excellent networking opportunities internally and externally. We are especially grateful that Sophie labelled us a pretty cool bunch.
Let’s keep the energy going – we’re only 12 days away from our one month anniversary. TGIF to you all!
It was great meeting everyone who could make it last night. I hope you all enjoyed the event as much as I did.
Let me start by welcoming Karen Au, our newest volunteer. Karen’s bringing us her many skills from teaching and writing to vocal performance and event coordinating. Great to have you on board Karen. Looking forward to meeting you at our next “meeting” (that is a little hint for you Elliot, we expect more get-togethers)
As some of you may already know, we have a very generous art donation from Nuwan Foneska, you can now check out the pieces on our service offering page. There have been some rumours about the possibility of an auction we may be able to organize. These paintings would be certainly front and centre. Stay tuned for news of our very own auction in support of Haiti.
The CBC ran a heart breaking story today on the number of people left disabled after the earthquake. Healing Hands for Haiti, an organization specializing in physical rehabilitation and disability treatment and cure, has been working in Haiti for over ten years. They already announced their intention to rebuild their rehab centre and have had a new team join them in the mean time to help out the aid medical personnel with assessing and treating patients.
More on the news front: Operation Stork — Citizenship and Immigration Canada has been working to accelerate the Haitian adoption process. 31 Haitian children are going to land tonight in Ottawa to meet their adoptive families. More adopted children are due to arrive throughout the month.
Since that is such happy news, I feel I should wrap it up right here. Have a good night everyone.
Our cooperative has just turned two weeks old, and we got brand new clothes to celebrate the occasion. As you can see, our team of dedicated designers have unveiled new branding for Toronto Works For Haiti. Huge thanks to our favourite uncles for giving us a new set of clothes! The uncles’ labour of love, the new head banner tells a lot about us – please take a moment to look at it.
We’d like to highlight a book that Elliot has been reading to help him lead Toronto Works For Haiti. In “Change by Design”, Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO, shares a few tips on how to curate the emotional ride of nurturing new projects based on his experience with his own design firm. Have a look at the graph below. Certainly during the first week of TW4H, we were charged with mountain-high hope. Then, came the second week where we were in the negative yet insightful stage.
It’s important that we go on to the next, confidence stage and do not become stagnant. To do this, we should turn to the insights that have been picked up along the way, and improve our processes so as to better serve our clients and manage service offers. We’re doing this to ultimately help the people in Haiti to rebuild their community.
We’d also like to build our own community here in Toronto. We believe that together with other local volunteer groups, we can offer much better assistance to the people in Haiti. HaiHaiTO is holding their fundraising event on February 11, and Toronto Help Haiti!’s One Love For Haiti is happening on February 6. These are just some of the events that will send out messages of encouragement to those who survived the ordeal. Thinking about what we have been and will be doing as a community here in Toronto makes us feel hopeful.
More good news on the business front to share with you. We were approached by a local artist who would like to donate his artwork for Toronto Works For Haiti. We will post the images of his artwork on our site later this week for all to see. And of course, we are pleased with the RSVPs for tomorrow’s event. It will be an amazing gathering for sure. Looking forward to seeing you all there!
It’s cold in Toronto but it’s hovering around 30C in Port-au-Prince, and sunny. What this means is that the weather’s right for getting work done, both here and in Haiti. Looking at the week ahead, we have our work cut out for us.
Today, we have Francois Phaboriboun on board, offering accounting and bookkeeping services. We have also updated Kim and Jennifer’s Personal Coaching Services and a local art director on our service offering page. So let’s make our focus for this upcoming week the matching of volunteers to volunteer seekers. We are definitely continuing to encourage our friends and co-workers to check out the blog and sign up. But our special task this week is to see how many links we can make between the services provided and services required. If you spot a potential connection, please email us and let us know!
It’s been two weeks since the earthquake, and instead of just reporting about what’s happening in Haiti now, a lot of the weekend newspapers have asked reporters and commentators to make their remarks and suggestions for what they see as things that need to be done to help Haitians deal not only with the immediate aftermath, but also to help build a better and stronger Haiti.
Happy Saturday, everyone! Hopefully by now you’ve gotten the invite to the Toronto Works For Haiti meet-and-greet event on Tuesday, February 2 at Hemingway’s starting at 6pm for all TW4H volunteers and volunteer-seekers. This is a great opportunity to meet the people involved with TW4H, sign up with TW4H and find the volunteer/volunteer-seeker that you’d to work with. It’s cold outside, so what better time to get together in a cozy location to brainstorm, network, and charge up the batteries to donate to the Haiti relief efforts!
If anyone saw the Toronto Star’s Saturday edition today, they may have read about the concern that children orphaned by the earthquake in Haiti may fall prey to human trafficking. This is an unfortunate fall-out of the natural disaster. It makes you wonder about how bad situations can bring out the best and the worst in people.
It was a cold day in Toronto today with snow squalls from out of this world. The day has started getting longer – at least it feels like – and February is just around the corner. Wow, we cannot believe how far we have come. TW4H is now 23-volunteer strong, taking shape more and more day by day. More clients are signing up, more businesses are getting linked, more comments are being posted on the blog, and more emails enquiring about us are trickling in. While being grateful for our day jobs, we constantly think about what we can do to improve this organization. It is simply wonderful that we are here now, at Day 11.
So our networking night is happening next Tuesday! Please clear your schedule that evening. As mentioned earlier, details on the venue and time will be emailed. We want you to be there. It’s so great to know that some of you have already confirmed that you’re coming for sure. This meet and greet is going to be an important event for our group. We’re looking forward to the energy you will bring.
And lastly, Tomoe joins us as a new volunteer today! She will be providing Japanese translation and interpretation service. With her experience in teaching Japanese language courses to university students and writing articles in both English and Japanese for major newspapers and academic journals, she will be the problem-solver for all your Japanese language needs.
A lot of hearts touched our soul today. First, Globe and Mail reported another miracle in Port-au-Prince — A 16-year old rescued 15 days after quake. Then we got introduced to Vaden, one of the co-founders of Absolute Leadership Development in Hamilton, Ontario. We were absolutely moved after we saw his video clip from Port-Au-Prince updating us on the relief efforts in Haiti. We also ran into Spencer’s website. After hearing about the earthquake, Spencer, a high school senior, started a campaign to provide tents for the displaced In Haiti.
We think there is hope, and the hope will come from Toronto’s small business community. Let’s make it happen. Let’s do this for Haiti. It’s time to huddle closely together with our arms around each other’s shoulders. The Guardian reported today that Canadians have given the most towards the Haiti relief effort.
Business-wise, today was a day of matchmaking. First we matched up our new client, Jon Sowerby, a Toronto mortgage broker with a local graphic designer. Jon will get a fresh set of direct mail marketing materials and signage artwork for his new location. Then, thanks to Sophie Bifield, we got connected to @BrynaJones, a local Communications Specialist at Engine Communications. She wrote a beautiful article about why businesses should join TW4H. We encourage you to take a look and let us know what you think about what we’ve been doing so far.
And it’s time for some face time! We are planning our first Happy Hour Meet and Greet next Tuesday in the downtown core. It will be a great chance for the volunteers to network with each other and we will all get to meet our core team. Details to come soon! Hope to see you guys there.
A great news from TW4H HQ! Our new volunteer Yolanda just hired Elliot as a photographer for her website! This is great because it means we have helped our group members’ expand their network and also move one step closer to reaching our goal of $5,000. Thanks to Katherine for working tirelessly behind the scenes as well!
Our new website is taking shape more day by day and hour by hour. It’s a labourious process and we can’t wait to share the finished product with you soon. We’re almost there! Huge thanks to Mark and Elliot for all your hard work. You guys are doing an awesome job.
It feels unreal to have arrived at Day 9. We know that it’s your support and interest that keep us growing. So thank you. Thank you for standing in solidarity with Haitians and holding onto the dream of Haiti being filled with joyous, hopeful stories of human strength and compassion. With that, let’s keep going.
Ever since the earthquake, it has been quite easy to find media coverage about the orphans in Haiti. We hear about the ones who were going to be adopted as well as the ones who just lost their parents by the quake. Here in Toronto, it’s easy to find kids on the subway heading home with their parents – kids naturally cling to their parents’ arms and legs, look into their eyes with trust and lean on them to feel the warmth. So, let’s put it this way – you lose all of that one day, all of a sudden. If you can understand what that would mean to a child, you know why our help is urgent.
This past weekend, we spent most of our energy discussing our identity as a group and ways in which it will be communicated. As we grow into a more mature and experienced group, we know things may change a bit. However, our goal to help the Haitians in need and the grassroots approach will be here to stay.
We’re excited to have Kathy, Kim, Jennifer, Yolanda and Michael on board! Kathy is a fellow Torontonian who will be helping us out with her excellent writing skills. She’s already started writing up some pieces about us to be posted on the web. Kim and Jennifer are donating life coaching services. Their specially discounted package will help you with the perpetual question of the human race known as a work-life balance. If you are in a different kind of dilemma with numbers called statistics and surveys, Yolanda can help. She offers assistance with research design, stats analyses, and survey design through her firm Inquirus Research Design. She also tutors statistics course. And we have Michael who just may be an answer to your prayers when it comes to website design and IT consulting.
As you know, TW4H has been featured at several media outlets and it looks like that will continue in coming days. We’re very grateful for the interest in our work and always happy to answer any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to let us know.
Finally, just because we’re 8 days old, doesn’t mean we can use some facelift action here and there. We’ve already done some – if you noticed a few additions to our sidebar – and more is happening behind the scene. We should be ready to get it up and running soon. We hope you like what you see and as always, look forward to your thoughts and comments. Wish you a happy Tuesday!
"Hi, I'm a medical doctor and researcher at University of Toronto. When I first heard about Toronto Works For Haiti, the idea just blew me away.
Selflessly dedicating time and energy to help people in need is such a beautiful idea and a powerful image. It provides a much greater bond than donating money alone. On top of that, Toronto Works For Haiti delivers expert service with the warm feeling of doing the right thing. These are the reasons why I proudly support the excellent work of TW4H."
Thilo van Eimeren, MD
, used TW4H for babysitting service
"I needed photos of myself for my business website and TW4H put me in touch with a great photographer. Elliot really put me at ease during the shoot and the result is photos that are probably the best photos I've ever had of myself. Thanks."
