A New Beginning
March 6th 2023
When I was young, my family did not have a lot of money and we struggled financially for basically everything. I remember coming home one day and my father had a box of food he told me that he picked up at our local food bank. It was such a relief and a blessing to us, and I will never forget the kindness that we received from our community.
I vowed that I would return the gesture later in life if I was able to.
In the fall of 2013 I noticed that our Orangeville Food Bank was active on Facebook - and as it so happened I was doing social media marketing at the time. I reached out and offered my services on a volunteer basis to help them with their social media. I didn’t realize what a huge impact volunteering at the food bank would have on my life. It opened my mind and heart to kindness, compassion, empathy, and acceptance. I learned to remove judgment and traditional stigmas and embrace everyone around me as a neighbour. Best of all, I got great hugs, met great friends, and had the opportunity to spend my time giving back to the same organization that had helped my family when we so needed it.
My digital marketing business, Dufferin Media, after 10 years in business has a core management team and staff that take care of the day to day operations, and I am now taking a step back from the company to act as an ambassador and cheerleader.
I have had my own Media Strategy & Consulting business for 4 years, and recently dabbled in Influencer Marketing, but I realized recently that was not really feeling like the right fit.
The past year or so I’ve just felt “off” professionally. Like I was missing grasping what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I felt like I was not sure I wanted to be when I “grew up”.
The epiphany moment came, when with a relaxed heart and an open mind, I attended a sledge hockey tournament with my husband. Attending an event like this truly allows someone to understand the spirit of inclusion and accessibility. Another team was explaining how they have been able to attend all of these really cool tournaments in places like Atlanta and Las Vegas - through grant funding. And I thought - well geez someone should try and get some grants for our team. LIGHT BULB moment right here! I KNEW immediately when my inner voice SCREAMED out “I CAN DO THAT”.
And true to my entrepreneurial nature I signed up immediately to a grant writing course, and offered to do some grants for the Orangeville Food Bank.
What I realized quickly was that over 20 years in business and marketing, along with a formal education in accounting gave me experience and skills that would serve me incredibly well writing grants.
I’m officially turning this into my professional focus, and am so very proud to share this with you all now as I open myself up to the possibility of helping nonprofit organizations get funding to help them do more, serve more, help more people in the principle of love and giving.
If you are part of a nonprofit organization I would love to chat with you, please contact me via any of my social media channels or email:
