This week has been a difficult one for the BBF Selection Committee. Applications for the Bright Beginnings Foundation Bursary 2020 are coming in. The students’ words are heartfelt, sometimes difficult to hear and have kept us up at night. At the same time, we are hearing messages of hope for dreams being realized and pride in the fact that they are the first in their family to get a post-secondary education.
A few weeks ago, BBF held our third annual Bright Futures Banquet. By all accounts it was our most successful banquet ever! Some of the highlights were…
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The City of Surrey sponsored the evening. This means that every penny raised in ticket sales, liquor, raffle and silent auction sales has been directed to the students. Just as importantly, Surrey City Council’s support of BBF is significant to us as are now working together to better the lives of Surrey students and their families.
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Seeing so many people in support of BBF and our students is gratifying. We saw record attendance.
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Mozhdah, who’s voice is powerful, both musically and as an activist, was our guest speaker and artist. We have been asked how we were able to pull off a “coup” and get someone of her caliber.
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Shawn’s testimonial. We are endlessly impressed by our student who so generously volunteered to tell us the impact BBF has had on him and his family. His speech is published below.
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Once again, we had The Maestro as our funny and engaging M/C
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We had lots of student participation (visual and performance artists from Surrey high schools)
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Sabeeka, was our young artist-in-residence. She is wonderfully talented and thoughtful and it is predicted that she will do great things.
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There was incredible positive energy from the two dance troupes from Princess Margaret Secondary
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Simmy Cheema from CloseLook Magazine and Productions was there to record the evening and help get the word out about BBF. We will post a link to our article as soon as we are able
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BBF was recognized by the local MLAs for the good work we do. We were presented with a certificate.
We would like to thank everyone who came out to our Bright Futures for Surrey Youth Banquet. We also would like to say thank you to the many who were not able to join us that evening but donated generously to the BBF fund.
As mentioned above, we are enormously thankful to our student Shawn. We make a point of carefully respecting the privacy of all of our students. It would be great to tell their stories and post photographs on our website as a way of building support. However, each recipient must be comfortable with the help being given and anonymity is generally preferred.
That is why we are particularly appreciative of Shawn and his willingness to tell us a little of his own story.
Here, in his own words (with minor edits for brevity) …
I would like to start from the very beginning about how I come across the foundation.
I had been doing what any other typical grade 12 student would be, which was searching and applying for scholarships and financial bursaries. Then my high-school band teacher received an email with a list from the career counsellor and suggested that I should look at the Bright Beginnings Foundation. I had overlooked it at first but my teacher emailed the counsellor back and mentioned that I could be a good candidate for the bursary. My counsellor began to pester me about it so, at first, I reluctantly began to fill out the application.
I started working on the essay questions and made sure the punctuation was correct and there were no typos. Then I sent it back and forth to my counsellor to make sure my answers were as polished as they could be. The day came to finally submit my application, and BOY, I cannot express how frightened and anxious I was feeling because every single time I clicked “submit” on the online submission, all I saw on the screen was “Form cannot be submitted.” Naturally both myself and my counsellor gave it multiple tries but we eventually gave up and just emailed Tammy Neuman the application. Within moments we received an email stating that they had not yet made sure the online form was in perfect working order. After hearing that I came back to feeling level-headed cause I could’ve missed the deadline to apply. I was reassured when Tammy sent an email to my counsellor and set up a follow-up interview. Luckily the interview went well. I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t.
Now comes the sappy part…
I look at my personal situation and think to myself – “Shawn, these are the cards that have been dealt to you. Now what will you choose to do with them?” And I think about how life would’ve been without the backing of you guys at Bright Beginnings. I don’t think I can really explain how appreciative I am of the foundation for the unconditional support that I am receiving because my mom was, and still is, the only one working in my family. And having her support me alone wouldn’t be an option because it would mean I’d have to take gap years to earn money to pay for my own education.
The BBF bursary really made a positive impact on my family and I always tell my parents how my education is something that they shouldn’t have to worry about since now they only needed to think about paying their own bills. But, as parents do, they worry for their children. For them and myself, knowing that the foundation is behind me in these formative years really alleviates many stresses. I think about how thankful I am to be able to focus purely on my education since I do have a 7-course workload. But seriously, having the time to focus on my passion and education really makes my time in college worthwhile and enjoyable— even though it can be stressful at times. Finally, I’d like to conclude by acknowledging the organization and its support for students like me who may need the extra push. Again, I cannot express how grateful I am for being given such an opportunity.
Thank you.
