Because Dignity is Beautiful
Beauty Night Society events in Vancouver are a fusion of visual art and theatre. Tonight we start off at Robert Held Art Glass where the artists will be auctioning off pieces for Beauty Night. We can watch Robert Held create a piece that will be auctioned off for Beauty Night.
Here are the details:
Vancouver, BC…Robert Held Art Glass is pleased to announce their annual Sale & Gala Event, November 20th from 5pm – 9pm. Get into the holiday spirit early with this festive annual holiday Sale and Gala Event. This amazing collective will not only feature some of the work by BC’s best talents, but will provide the opportunity to shake hands with the artists themselves, including Robert Held, Richard Scheib, Katy Pattison, Jeremy Day Morris, Melanie Rowe, Lynne Chapelle, Joanne Andrighetti, and many more. The artists will entertain with beadwork demonstrations, glass demonstrations, create a collaborative holiday piece as well as have their popular ‘cooking with glass’ showcase with some tantalizing treats for our guests. While nibbling on the glass cooked food or sipping on the fine wine, you can also peruse the gallery and find some fantastic deals for your holiday shopping. With up to 50% off Robert Held Glass, a wide selection of jewellery, glass sculptures, beads, and fused glass work, you’re sure to fill your stockings!
The artists will also be providing pieces to be auctioned off for Beauty Night Society. Beauty Night provides marginalized women and youth tools to change their lives and heal themselves and their communities. Beauty Night National Executive Director & Founder, Caroline MacGillivray will chat about the what Beauty Night Society does and why. After that Robert Held will create a piece on site and auction it off to raise funds for Beauty Night Society. The Gala event is open to the public and the Pre-holiday sale continues all week from November 21 – 28, 10am – 6pm so come down to get the fires burning.
After the event, Beauty Night volunteers will be escorting Beauty Night participants to see tonight’s performance of Demon Voice. More details to come about the world premiere of Shawn McDonald’s play… tomorrow.
Last night I spoke with Knit Fit founder and program coordinator, Laura Mah. On Monday afternoon, Laura headed to White Rock Elementary to talk about how we can work together to make a difference in the lives of many. Ten year old, Katie Dalinghaus and her class spent the afternoon knitting scarves for Knit Fit. Several parents were on hand to help the kids knit the scarves that we will be handing out on December 14th and on Christmas Eve.
While she and Jenny Tran embarked on the process of wrapping 300 hand made scarves, I asked Laura to fill me in on how many people have been involved in the Knit Fit portion of our annual Xmas Stocking Drive.
This morning, Jenna sent the following update to post:
Knit Fit has been busy getting out the word for why Knit Fit was established. In the past 2 weeks, Knit Fit has already visited 3 different schools to teach students how to knit and show them the importance of giving back. So far, Knit Fit has met Lord Beaconsfield Elementary, Lord Strathcona Elementary, and Chief Maquinna Elementary.
At Lord Beaconsfield, Knit Fit spoke with 2 different classes, and again will be visiting Wednesday to teach the kids how to knit.
At Lord Strathcona, Knit Fit organized a club for students who were interested in knitting. These meeting are held each Monday at lunch. At these meeting students will come together and knit, while enjoying their lunches and having good conversation.
At Chief Maquinna, Knit Fit attended their Peace Concert held in respect for Remembrance Day. Here Knit Fit talked about the background of Knit Fit in front of the Maquinna neighbourhood community, while also sharing some personal stories of how Knit Fit has affected them.
When I did the math, I realized Knit Fit is actively involving hundreds of kids, youth, parents and teachers. When you combine those volunteer efforts with the volunteers that have been sewing and decorating the 600 Xmas stockings, we have a community effort that not only impacts the Beauty Night Society participants who receive the warm scarves and stockings, it also affects all of the people who contributed their time, energy, skills and money to make this project happen.
When I was interviewed by Telus Television last Monday, I was asked how many volunteers do we have and what the demographic of our volunteers are. I realized we have thousands of volunteers. Some who work directly with our participants. Others who constantly fundraise and create events to raise awareness and contributions so we can continue to provide tools for disenfranchised women and children to make positive life style choices and heal themselves and the community. Many who mentor the children in our community who teach them leadership and how they can impact someone’s life with their actions. The children and youth who believe if we give from our hearts, we can heal the world. When all of us work together, we change lives.
In regards to working together, it is important to recognize that we learn things from everyone. Through laughter and love, we can combine the leadership development and contributions to change the world. When women wrap the warm scarves around their neck or when their eyes light up as they open up the stocking decorated especially for them, I believe it does the human spirit a great deal of good.
Beauty Night Makeup Artist Volunteer, Ella Bak poses with DJ JoPurity and Diane
When we asked Beauty Night Society (BNS) volunteer and participants what they would like to experience, celebration and joy was something that everyone wanted. On October 26th, we put our Halloween committee’s concepts into action. Our decorating committee (participants, volunteers & board members) came in early to set the stage for the event to follow.
Cob webs, orange and black streamers adorned the ceiling, drawers, and walls of the room. The buzz of excitement filled the entire centre. Together our decorating committee worked together to create an environment of fun that our make over volunteers could still work within.
Make up Artists Tiffany Telford, Ella Bak and Amanda Gangoso met the requests of our volunteers and participants. Hairdresser, Gary Smith created hair for “Mili Cyrus” to zombies, vampires and many more. At our nail station, Margo Dalinghaus and Kate created glamour girl nails as easily as claws for the various types of claws that people wanted.
Participant Facilitator, DJ Joe and Kerry Parsons filled the cups with hot tea while Stephanie Scott and photographer, Aaron Chung offered chocolate treats to participants who wanted to pose for our Halloween photo shoot. Posing with their children, with their friends, the women playing in front of the camera. “Aaron Chung creates a safe space for the women to enjoy being captured on film. Together with our amazing group of volunteers, participants and board members – our Beauty Night Society (BNS) celebrations are a pleasure for all involved!” explains National Executive Director and Founder, Caroline MacGillivray.
Thanks to Make Over Program Facilitator, Tiffany Telford, the children included cookie decoration as part of their activities in our Kids’ Club activities. Kids’ Club Program Co-ordinators, Alex Fox and Sophia Hughes supervised the decoration of bat shaped cookies as well as creating Halloween Masks. In the past two months, Hughes and Fox have worked together to create a fantastic program geared towards our participants’ children.
“Originally Katie Benjamin (Founder of Womyns Gym) wanted to offer child care for our Womyns Gym program participants. When we moved Womyns Gym from Tuesday and Thursdays to Monday and Wednesdays, I felt we needed to offer child care to our other program participants’ children. It wouldn’t be fair to only have it for one program. Alexa and Sophia have created a program that the kids can call their own. I am thrilled to have such amazing program coordinators. When I asked if we could create program to foster healthy self esteem and incorporate 20 minutes of physical activity every hour, Alexa and Sophia went above and beyond what I asked for. I know Kids’ Club is a huge benefit to the kids and to their parents – who participant in our other programming.”
Although we planned pumpkin carving and face painting as part of our Mom & Tot Nutrition program, the children were included in the photo shoot and face painting during the festivities on the 26th. Some of the children came dressed in costumes as did our volunteers. The rooms were filled with kangaroos, cats, vampires, zombies, and witches.
For those who did not bring costumes, Denise Van Gorkum and Amanda played fairy godmother. There women and children created magic wands, crowns, necklaces and witch hats. The opportunity to create their own costumes was incredibly fun and empowering. Watching faces filled with dejection due to forgetting a costume change to delight as they created their own was heart warming.
We were thrilled to have Womyns Gym volunteers get cat noses & whiskers or moustashes painted on their faces before training the women. We were thrilled to welcome Katie Gove from Telus’ Community Giving to our festivities. Beauty Night Society’s Womyns Gym is a proud recipient of Telus Community Giving.
The only dark spot in the evening was the fact that some of the numbers were down. When we followed up with participants the following evening, concerns of swine flu kept some of our participants at home. Although we would have loved to have seen more of our participants (we had about 25 participants throughout the entire night), we are glad that they are abiding by health policies that Beauty Night Society has shared with volunteers and participants. Rest and time to heal is vitally important during the cold and flu season!
Huge thanks to all of our volunteers, community partners – especially the PHS Life Skills Centre, Telus Community Giving, and of course our participants! When we work together, we can make a huge impact in our communities!
