Kin Blog

I have been a police officer for 19 years. I have seen families from all walks of life, those with a great deal and those without. I quickly learned that it didn’t matter how many parents or how much money, what does matter is how much love there is in the home, rules and guidance for children and role models in a young adult’s life. Anyone can influence the life of a child, even a stranger.

Keeping in touch is so important - whether it’s with donors, members of an organization or club like Kin Canada, and especially friends and family.  Here at Kin Canada, one of our values is inclusiveness. We seek involvement from our diverse communities, and to do so, we cannot rely on social media and email alone.  

As National Volunteer Week draws to a close, I hope you feel valued and appreciated by your community and those who benefit from your gifts of time and energy. If you are part of Kin, not only do you volunteer for your club’s specific events and causes, but you might also have involvement in helping grow membership and recruiting extra volunteers.  Volunteer Centres are a pillar in any community and are there to serve volunteers, non-profits, and as a result, the community’s needs. Connecting with your local volunteer centre has many benefits - some obvious, and some less known.

With the emergence (and dominance) of social media and other online tools in our daily lives, getting through to your audience can be tricky at times. How do you get through to someone who is constantly seeing ads, jumping around different social media sites and scanning headlines but rarely reading full stories throughout the day? One way is through storytelling, and telling your story properly.

We give so much of ourselves as volunteers, and sometimes we lose balance in our lives. Work-life balance is one thing, but even more special and elusive is the work-life-volunteer balance. 

Over the last several months, we’ve seen many Kin Canada clubs celebrate major anniversaries. There have been 40, 60 and even 90 year milestones reached, which as a result, make us reflect on the accomplishments of the past (almost) 94 years Kin Canada has been around – and look forward to the future with determination to make the next 94 years just as noteworthy.

While Kin Canada clubs perform countless service projects and fundraisers each year, there’s a lot of additional coverage about them around this time because of the holiday-centered projects and events.