Eat, Drink, & Be Merry in Support of Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society

Got plans for Thursday, March 9th? Join me at Mount Pleasant's historic Heritage Hall for Savour Our Neighbourhood, a celebration of local food & drink in support of the Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society. Enjoy a sleeve or two of beer from tasty local breweries Bomber, Parallel 49, & Main Street, or a glass of wine from BC Wine Studios, taste a wide array of appetizers & treats from local restaurants Fable, El Camino's, Batard Bakery, Earnest Ice Cream, Eight & a Half, The French Table, Nuba, General Public, & Bob Likes Thai Food. Bid on a few choice items in our silent auction, try your luck in the basket raffles or draws for prizes like two flights to anywhere Westjet flies, or a weekend at the Tinhorn Creek Guest House. All accompanied by the musical stylings of Juno Award winning pianist John Hall.

Don't take my word for it--check out the photos of the past three years of the event here. It's always a fun evening.

Some tickets are still available--get yours soon to avoid disappointment! Buy them online at Eventbrite here.

Savour Our Neighbourhood
Thursday, March 9
5:30pm-9:30pm
Heritage Hall
3102 Main St, Vancouver, BC

Tickets $50 (includes a drink & all food)
Westjet draw tickets $20 on Eventbrite, $30 at event (if still available)

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WIN 2 Tickets to Savour Our Neighbourhood

Savour Our Neighbourhood 2016 – The Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society's 3rd annual fundraising event – is almost upon us! Thursday, March 10th, from 5:30pm to 9:30pm, we're creating a feast for the senses, filling Heritage Hall with local food, craft beer, BC wine, & music.

At Savour Our Neighbourhood you'll sample bites from a variety of local restaurants and eateries, sip beverages from local microbreweries and premium BC wineries. You won't be able to resist dancing to the infectious soul and funk of some of Vancouver’s finest musicians. You'll have the chance to win some incredible prizes in the raffles and silent auction. This is an adult only event (19+).

If this sounds like fun to you, enter the contest to WIN two tickets to Savour Our Neighbourhood!

There are several options for entry--please do as many as you like to improve your chances of winning. Contest closes at 11:59pm Monday, March 7. The winner will be contacted by email & must reply within 24 hours to claim their tickets. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Enjoy the best food & drink of Mount Pleasant for a great cause

My favourite non-profit organization ever--the Mount Pleasant Family Centre--will be holding our annual fundraiser next month. Savour Our Neighbourhood is an evening of wine & beer, great local food tasting, live music, & prizes at Heritage Hall. Tickets include food & a free drink, with proceeds funding the amazing work that the MPFC does in supporting families of young children in our neighbourhood.

Last year's Savour Our Neighbourhood was a blast & it sold out well before the event, so I wouldn't wait on buying your tickets. Also: if you purchase your tickets before March 6, you can use the promo code SAVOUR2015 to save $5 off each ticket. Buy tickets here.

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Coming Up For Air, or After The Ball

Me, all gussied up for Savour Our Neighbourhood

Whew. TGIF. Or, more like, TGTFIO (Thank goodness that fundraiser is over). Though I had a relatively small part to play in organizing this fundraiser, it's been constantly on my mind for weeks & weeks. Hence the somewhat spotty blogging here. If you missed my post about it or my incessant promotion of it on Facebook & Twitter, here's a recap.

I, along with more than a dozen other board members & staff of the Mount Pleasant Family Centre just hosted our very first proper big adult fundraiser: Savour Our Neighbourhood, at Heritage Hall. We involved more than a dozen eateries, bakeries & even an artisanal ice cream shop, four breweries, plus literally dozens of local businesses who donated prizes. We coordinated raffles, basket draws & a silent auction, debuted a video all about the Mount Pleasant Family Centre (SEE BELOW), & held a Twitter contest. It was a crazy learning curve for many of us with BC's byzantine liquor laws, not to mention all of the complications of getting food from that many providers.

I can't even talk any more about the insane amount of work & stress that went into this, or I'll trigger some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. (Okay, I jest. But only a little) What I will say is that the event went off without any major hitches. The sold-out crowd thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful beers, wine, food & fabulous band (Some of the members of SoulStream & some from Smokin' Section). Once I'd finished my duties at check-in/greeting, then raffle ticket sales, then Twitter contest management, I got to relax for a few minutes.

I'm so glad we did it &, at the same time, I'm also so glad it's over. On to the thank you notes, 'post mortem' debriefing, & patting ourselves on the back. See you in this space a little bit more often, too!

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Support the Mount Pleasant Family Centre by attending #SavourOurNeighbourhood

Along with parenting my two littles, I squeeze in some volunteer work as a board member of the Mount Pleasant Family Centre. It's an amazing organization that provides early childhood development programs like the drop-in program for parents & caregivers of children 0-6, school readiness programs, workshops & parenting support groups, providing a home-away-from-home to meet other parents & get support from highly trained staff & volunteers.

As a non-profit that relies on grant money & donations, we need to fundraise to keep our great programs running. This year, our board of directors has set a target of $10,000 that we hope to achieve with our first big fundraising event called Savour Our Neighbourhood. It's going to be a fun evening of local craft beer, wine, local food from some of the amazing restaurants, bakeries & cafes in our neighbourhood, live music & many chances to support the centre via an auction & raffles.

There will be six different beers from Storm Brewing, Parallel 49 Brewing, Red Truck Brewery, & R&B Brewing. We'll have five wines from Tinhorn Creek Vineyards, plus a variety of small bites from from Eight 1/2 Restaurant & Lounge, Krave, Sweetsalt Bakery, Charlie's Little Italian, Bob Likes Thai, Sushiyama, The French Table, Marche, Nuba, Graze, Harkness & Co Butchers, Benton Brothers Fine Cheeses. Prizes & auction items from Tinhorn Creek, Images By Bethany, Momentum Watches, Brassneck Brewing, & many many more.

Savour Our Neighbourhood takes place March 27th, 6-9pm at Heritage Hall, at 15th Avenue & Main Street. Tickets for the event are $35. You can get them at the Family Centre at 2910 St. George Street at 13th Avenue, or online on our Eventbrite page.

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A Day in the Life

A whole lotta this...

After my first full week at school in the PR program at SFU, plus a little 'networking' with my classmates (read: pigging out on panko-breaded chicken strips & fries with tonnes of ketchup), I was ready for a weekend.

Sunday was my 'Saturday' (keep this in mind when you're all yelling TGIF--I've got one more school day to go! :P) & I spent the first half of it researching potential practicum placements. In the afternoon, after we actually managed to get Sprout to nap, we headed to the BC Home & Garden Show. I have to admit, I was underwhelmed. True, we did get there in the last hour & a half of the show, but I was expecting it to look a bit less like a trade show, I guess. I didn't see any kid-friendly stuff there either, except one booth with wooden playground structure thingies.

Today, my 'Sunday', I had a really productive day. I biked Sprout to daycare by a little after 9am, picked up a book at the library that i need for school (Canadian Press Style Guide) & biked back home in time to do an information interview with the lovely Jeanette of Limelite PR, via Skype. Between that & the time my stomach rumbling got the better of me, I did an overhaul of my LinkedIn profile.

While munching on a bagel & an apple, I sorted out some Sprog-related business & responded to literally dozens of emails relating to school stuff & my board work with the Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society. I got started on some of my homework & then realized it was time to go pick up Sprout from daycare, so I zipped over by bike again.

With just a little bit of this.

Once Sprout is home, it's pretty hard to just jump back into work, so I made us some smoothies (banana, mango, soy milk, oatmeal, hemp hearts & chia, in case you were wondering) while he rode around on his collection of ride-on toys on the deck. Oli got home at this point & I was able to get back to work for an hour or two while he made dinner & Sprout alternately tried to sit on me or hijack my computer. I managed to get started on redoing my resume & do a little writing work for Hawksworth as well, despite some Gmail issues, dinner & toddler tantrums.

At just after 10pm, I'm pretty tired. Also proud that I got so much done today on only five or six hours of sleep. Here's hoping I can sustain this productivity for the next, oh, eight weeks.

What was your day like today?


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Valentine's Day Dance for Families TODAY

Bid on this cute painting at the auction!

What are you doing this afternoon? Why not celebrate Valentine's Day (just a little late) with the Mount Pleasant Family Centre Society? Today we're having our first Family Valentine's Dance Party.

This all-ages, family-friendly event is today, Saturday, February 16th 2:30-5pm, at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral @ 154 E. 10th Ave., west of Main St. Tickets are by donation (suggested $10) & one ticket will cover the whole family. No one turned away for lack of funds.
 
Tunes will be provided by DJ Little D (you may remember her from Disco Baby at Rhizome) & there will be a silent auction at the event as well. The auction is a fundraiser to help cover costs of the event, with items donated by local businesses like Fit 4 Two, Sushiyama, Matchstick Coffee Roasters, Nannies on Call, Bopomo Pictures, Little Nest & more! You can get a preview of all the cool items on the Facebook page here.

One last thing to mention: this is a tea party potluck, so think of some yummy goodies &/or tea you'd love to share. Thanks so much! We look forward to seeing you there!


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A Busy Week Ahead: Friends, Fish, a Fairy & Fun!

I feel like I'm getting busier & busier with events & various commitments these days. I'm not really complaining though--it's manageable & I honestly like being busy. Today I'll be attending a Board Basics workshop, to help learn how to be a better board member for the Mount Pleasant Family Centre. Then Sprout & I will be getting a tour of the Vancouver Aquarium with some of my favourite blogger friends. (Stay tuned for more on that later or watch my Instagram feed if you must see something today!) If I've still got any energy left, I will head up Burnaby Mountain to help celebrate my cousin's 30th birthday tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be volunteering for Modo the Car Co-op at Got Craft!, so if you're going to be there from noon to about 2 pm, look for me! I'll be roving around & talking to people about how car sharing works. Next up the same day is the Vancouver Mom Christmas get together. I wasn't able to make it to last year's, so I'm really looking forward to seeing all the Vancouver Mom crew in real life--I usually just talk to them via email & tweets.

The Christmas parties keep coming with the Mount Pleasant Family Centre staff & board party on & Hawksworth Communications next week. I guess this is a benefit to freelancing--more parties!

Thursday is the Mount Pleasant Family Centre's big Holiday Party. If you're in the neighbourhood, come on down to the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House on East Broadway. Decorate cookies, visit with Santa, sing & have fun from 9:30am-12:30pm. I'll be performing there (look for a 9-foot fairy) along with Dawn Dreams & Pete "Redbird" Graham-Gaudreau.

One last thing to mention: I'm selling tickets for the Mount Pleasant Family Centre's holiday raffle. It is a fundraiser to help support all the wonderful work that the Family Centre does throughout the year. There are more than a dozen prizes to be won, donated from some awesome local businesses: a three month pass to Eastside Fitness, gift certificates from Collage Collage, Wee Ones Reruns Children's store, Beaucoup Bakery, the Outpost Cafe, Fray restaurant ($100!), Lucky's Comics, Sal Y Limon restaurant, 4Cats Art Studio, Beansprouts, Granville Island Toy Company, The Tipper restaurant, a gift basket from Nester's Market & a St. Moritz watch! Tickets are $2 each or $5 for three of them. Please contact me if you'd like to buy some!

Hope you're having a great holiday season so far, full of mandarin oranges, hot chocolate, parties & whatever you love to do & eat at this time of year!



Nothing says “best gift ever” like a caribou!
 

Starting at just $40, Gifts of Canadian Nature help protect habitat for Canada’s native wildlife. A Gift of Canadian Nature lasts for years to come and is a gift that gives thrice! Once to the recipient with a personalized certificate and a beautiful calendar, once to the giver with a charitable tax receipt, and once to Canadian wildlife. This year we are featuring the snowy owl, the grizzly bear, the caribou, the gray fox and the Canada lynx. Click the image or follow this link for more information.

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