Halfway Home!

Today, it hit me. I am sitting in a fishing lodge near Blackville, New Brunswick, and tour is over halfway over. How did I get here? Yesterday I was loading my bags into our house in Hamilton, never having left home before. I learned how to set up a concert, public speak like a pro and deal with life on a tour bus. Today, the road is my home, and I have never felt so fulfilled.

When people ask me what road life is like, I always have trouble answering. The easy answers would be, ‘crazy’, ‘unpredictable’ or simply, ‘exhausting’. These aren’t enough. I could talk about the bus, the band, the shows, the billets, the problems or successes, the laughter or the awkward silences. Even that doesn’t do it justice. After all, we came together a group of people with differing talents and personalities, each looking to make an impact and inspire change. Look at how far we’ve come!

How can I explain to someone how it feels to hear students telling me that this project changed their lives? How can I paraphrase the giddiness that comes when a teacher commends me for choosing to do what I do? Tour is those moments. It is hearing a sixteen year-old argue the shortfalls of our consumerist, egocentric society and call for change in a Live Global workshop. It is seeing the look of passion and determination on an eighteen year-old’s face when I explain the LiveDifferent Academy. It is the look of excitement that fills a twelve year-old’s face when they tell me that in two years, they want to go on a Hero Holiday. Tour is in these moments, the ones that make you realize that it doesn’t matter how silent the audience is, that one student you touch with your message makes up for all the ones that you don’t. Tour is falling asleep at night with the knowledge and understanding that we are living differently. Tour is like nothing else.
This is what carries me through the harder days: the fact that this is a unique opportunity. My mantra for this experience has always been, ‘Every day is an adventure’. I am learning to grab each opportunity that life throws at me, and to face all challenges head-on. I am determined to walk away from tour feeling like I really seized each day, with no regrets.

So here we are. I’m halfway home. Tomorrow we will continue on to give love, bring hope and inspire change. I’m amazed to see how far we’ve come. I can’t wait to see what more we will accomplish.
 

Paisley, a LiveDifferent Academy student on the road

4 Reasons to book your Hero Holiday before Dec 31st

Here are 4 reasons to register online for a Hero Holiday before December 31

1. Reserve your spot – some trips are filling quickly! Register online and pay* your initial $300 to secure a spot on your selected trip. Good news: You are now able to both apply AND donate online for Hero Holiday trips!

2. Early-bird pricing*. With increasing travel costs, there is a possibility that prices* for trips could be slightly increased in 2012. As soon as you register and send your initial $300, current pricing* will be honoured. This pricing* offer is good until December 31, 2011.

3. Don’t miss 2011 Tax Refunds! Apply now so you can start fundraising before year-end – or request donations instead of Christmas gifts. Anyone that donates before December 31 will receive a tax receipt they can claim on their 2011 taxes. For example, if a donor gives $2000 before Dec 31, they could get back about a $1000 refund in income taxes as early as the middle of March (and then they will have more money to donate again  )

4. Because there is no experience out there like a Hero Holiday! Simply put, we have the best experience AND the lowest price*. Hundreds of volunteers complete our exit survey at the end of their Hero Holiday experience and 100% of those same volunteers have told us through that survey that they would recommend their Hero Holiday trip to others! Many volunteer travel companies exist for profit – but we are not a travel company. We are a registered non-profit charitable organization providing sustainable, tangible projects meeting real needs (ex. building homes for families) while giving volunteers the highest quality and most life changing experience possible.

Register Now!

• By “price” we really mean the “minimum individual fundraising goal” for each trip, as Hero Holiday is a charitable volunteer program, and not a consumer/for-profit travel service.

We are Woman

It’s two days into house build number two for us LiveDifferent Academy Students and although it has only been a few days a lot has been done! This week we are building for Maria and Pedro and their four kids who are ages four to sixteen. This family has a special place in my heart and building for them has lit a fire in my heart. They have so little; I brought more to Mexico with me then this family has but yet they are still able to give. We found out the day we interviewed them about their application that Maria always gives what she can to others and her children now
do the same. We have about four teddy bears in our house now that four year old Lupe has given us. But don’t worry we will be giving back to them! I can’t think of a more deserving family then this one although I know there are hundred’s of families that need new homes.

Maria and Pedro work in a tomato field that is about an hour away from their house and in order to catch the bus on time they have to leave their house by about 3 a.m. But before they can leave they have to make breakfast and lunch and make sure everything is ready for the day. Then they go off and work a nine hour day picking tomatoes which the girls and I know from personal experience is really hard work. And to add to this they don’t get home until 8:30 or 9:00pm and at least one parent is usually working every day. That means that they only have about five hours at home before they have to start the next day and to me that seems impossible, but to this family my impossible is their reality. However, this family completely owns their own piece of land and all of their children go to school which is a lot, especially for their situation.

So! This family really deserves a house and we are working extremely hard to give them one! But it has been a little crazy trying to build; we started a day late because it decided to rain a couple days before we were starting to build and we were given the wrong kind of wood twice! Also it is a very small space that we are working in so there has been a lot of moving of 2X4’s and sheets of plywood so that we are organized and won’t run into problems later! Can you tell that we are an all women group!? But being all women has not slowed us down and instead it has fuelled our fire! Because we started a day late we have now put in two full days of work and are right on schedule, we stood up the house today and completed the inside walls and painted over half the house! Our goal is to be done by Friday in hopes that we can dedicate the house to the family before Dawn has to go home (Dawn used to live here in Mexico working with Hero Holiday and is visiting for the week). I think that if we keep working as hard as we are we can definitely meet our goal! We have given a whole new meaning to being a woman this week. And we are also extremely happy to give back to this family for all the times they have given to people that they know to help them. In just a few more days this family will have a new house and I am so very thankful that I get to take part in building it and giving it to them.

Written by Britney Favreau, LiveDifferent Academy student living in Mexico