Vivianne

            Vivianne is a dedicated, outgoing community member, who loves to help out where ever she can! She came to the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House because of her job at the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC (AMSSA), who rented a room in the house for her to work in, temporarily. Through this experience, she grew to love the house and developed great relationships with the staff. As a result, when her contract ended, she continued to volunteer in order to continue helping the community grow.

            Vivianne started her volunteer experience at Mount Pleasant by joining the fundraising committee from 2006 to 2007 as co-chair, she then re-engaged with the committee in 2015. Here, Vivianne is able to use her event planning and marketing skills to add value to this community. Since December 2015, she has been on the Community Board, which advises and assists MPNH's Executive Director in determining direction, actions and issues affecting the House and the services provided to the community. 

            Vivianne believes that all programs here at the house are important, however, the food related programs hold special meaning to her. Being a foodie herself, anything food related - food security, community kitchens, community gardens, cooking classes, multicultural dinners and more... brings her great joy. As she says, “food brings people of all cultures together.”

Volunteering has given Vivianne the opportunity to not only learn about current issues in the community, but to come together as part of a team to help improve the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood we all know and love.

“It gives me a better scope and understanding of what it means to be in the community and why it’s important to volunteer… if you don’t, you really don’t know what’s going on”

            Vivianne has also received the Good Neighbours Award from the Association of Neighbourhood Houses of BC for her continued support and inspirational work in the community.  The award was presented in the fall of 2009 at the Italian Cultural Centre.

The nomination gave her a great sense of pride for it gave her the knowledge that her effort in and around MPNH was recognized. Vivianne was absolutely shocked to learn she had actually won at the awards ceremony. Knowing she had been nominated had been one thing, she was completely caught off guard! The experience for Vivianne was very flattering and touching. It showed the impact she had made in her community by simply volunteering. The award and her experience reaffirmed the importance and value of volunteers, regardless of the amount of hours they put in.