Amazing FUN Stories

Life is a collection of stories. Here are some of ours...

Our story

Abby

Reina

One of our current FUN Champs, Reina, is a repeat FUN Champs Award winner. In 2012 her first FUN Champs project was to create an Earthfest at her school – and did she ever! The event has grown each year, so much so that Green Party MLA Andrew Weaver attended and then said the following about it at the BC Legislature:

Thanks to the generous support of Maia Green and the Friends Uniting for Nature Society, otherwise known as the FUN Society, Reina Girvan-Randall and her team were able to launch their first Earthfest in 2012. In 2013, Madame Speaker, Campus View’s Earthfest won a national prize – one of only 10 schools from 600 submissions to receive 25,000$ in computer equipment from Staples Canada.This past week marked the 3rd year that Campus View hosted its community wide Earthfest — the goal always being to have fun and create broader community environmental awareness and change.

Because running an annual Earthfest wasn’t enough (ha!), Reina has partnered with a friend for her current FUN Champs project – the Victoria Eco-Rally Team (VERT). Together they have visited schools and events promoting awareness about the risks of the proposed Enbridge pipeline. This girl is unstoppable and we’re proud to support her.

Robyn

I first met Robyn when she came to FUN Camps on a scholarship one summer. She had not had the easiest life and was definitely a bit anxious and unsure of everything. She came to FUN Camps on scholarship for three summers in a row, and by the end of the third summer she had blossomed from your average kid who was timid and nervous into an amazing young lady, with a drive to make her dream of saving wolves come true! Robyn’s dream was to save the wolves. She has loved wolves for as long as she can remember, and when she learned about what is happening to them in the wild and how unprotected they are in this country, she wanted to do something about it.

She became a FUN Champ, and from September 2013 to May 2014 she worked tirelessly to create an event to raise awareness about the wolves, and to raise money for the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre in Golden, BC. This event went from a crazy idea, to something very real and very magical, that happened on Wednesday April 16th, at the Robert Bateman Centre Gallery in the inner harbour of Victoria, BC. The evening blew everyone away. I saw tears in her mother’s eyes on more than one occasion, and a close family friend said to me, “I saw Robyn grow up tonight”.

There were two screenings of Lords of Nature (a film about wolves), as well as various stations throughout the gallery including wolf origami, face-painting, wolf puppet-making and a letter-writing station for people to send letters to their MLAs.  There were beautiful gift baskets overflowing with goodies donated by the community to be raffled off, as well as a Robert Bateman print worth over $1000 that he decided to donate for her event.  There were information tables so that people could learn about wolves and what threatens them. And of course there was lots of yummy food and beverages, also donated for the cause.  Robyn spent hours tirelessly going door to door to different businesses asking for support.  Her work paid off and more than 15 sponsors donated something towards the event.  20 volunteers also helped out on the night to make it happen!  The community was eager to jump on board to support something this special.

The Northern Lights Wildlife Centre was so amazed by Robyn’s incredible work that they featured her in a newsletter, which resulted in a documentary filmmaker coming from Nelson, BC to film Robyn’s event! The filmmakers were so impressed and inspired by her that night that they told me they are going to make a mini-documentary called “Robyn and the Wolves”.

It has been a rare kind of magic to see Robyn’s transformation over the past few years into this unstoppable leader. To first meet her as a scholarship recipient who was timid and scared of almost everything, and now to be able to mentor her and work with her as she mobilizes the community to come together to create a beautiful evening gala for wolf conservation, has been truly extraordinary. I am not exaggerating when I say that Robyn is the type of kid who gives me the fuel and power to do the work that I do.