Appearing on the mayor's radio talk show

I had the pleasure of appearing on the Santa Barbara mayor's radio talk show where I was given the opportunity to promote the Miss International pageant and share my passion for mentoring with the BBBS organization. For those of you in the area the show will air this Saturday, December 1st at 10AM on KTMS-AM 990. Make sure you tune in. For those out of the area, I will be posting a link to the show so that you may listen to it online. What a wonderful opportunity! Huge thank you to mayor Helene Schneider for welcoming me into the studio to share my passion!

Family Service Agency of Santa Barbara (FSA)

It was so wonderful being able to speak at the Family Service Agency board of directors meeting today about my passion for Big Brothers Big Sisters! Very well received and looking forward to future opportunities with FSA! What a gracious group of people!

Bags, Bling, and Bubbly was a HUGE success!

November 9, 2012 I attended the Bags, Bling, and Bubbly fundraiser supporting the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ventura County. The event was phenomenal! There was a wonderful turnout and celebrity Tracey Gold was honored as their Wise, Wonderful Woman of the Year and I had the honor of sharing a table with her at the event. Tracey spoke on her battle with anorexia and the way in which she was able to help mentor other girls later in life who were in the midst of the same fight. Her story of making a comeback from such a difficult time in her life was rather inspiring. It was so much fun spending the afternoon swapping stories with her!

I was also given the opportunity to speak at the event and the feedback was tremendous. Sharing the very personal story of my past is new for me, and not quite yet comfortable, and this was the first time that I shared it with such a large group of people.  After the fact I realized how unnecessary my pre-speech jitters were. A large number of people approached me after I spoke and told me how moving it was for them to see that I used my past to build strength and better myself instead of allowing it to negatively affect my future.

BIG thank you to BBBS of Ventura County for this wonderful opportunity!

Here is a link to the article written by the Ventura County Star about the event:

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/nov/09/luncheon-raises-funds-for-big-brothers-big-of/ .

Another successful meeting!

On October 22, 2012 I was given the opportunity to meet with Marni Cooney, Co-President of the Marketing and Development Committee for Family Services Agency/Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Christina Pizarro one of the committee members. I can’t even begin to tell you how impressed I was with their enthusiasm for Big Brothers Big Sisters. We spent a couple of hours getting to know one another and brainstorming ideas for marketing the program. We came up with so many wonderful ideas including setting up an information booth at the downtown Santa Barbara farmers market once a month, getting involved with the student body at UCSB, posting volunteer info in the “Lighting the Way” section of the Santa Barbara newspaper, and having me appear on the Mayor’s radio talk show. I am incredibly grateful for Marni and Christina’s eagerness to help me help the program flourish by using my title as a microphone to share my passion for mentoring!