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A Pay It Forward Workshop |
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| EVENT
HISTORY
The event idea was born when my friend Alicia Palicios was laid off from her job at the company we were both working for at the time. Shortly after the "RIF," Alicia and I were having lunch. She shared with me that she felt the need to connect with others in a helping way. After a few minutes of brainstorming, we quickly assembled the critical associations -- what matters most, abundance, work, love, sharing, community, changing the world, children = Pay It Forward. We had a rough outline of the event by the end of lunch. We shared the idea for a Pay It Forward workshop with our friends. They immediately grasped what we were trying to do. In a couple of weeks, we had all the volunteers for the event in place. QUESTION #1: HOW DID IT GO? The one-word summary: spectacularly! Fourteen nonprofit groups participated. A dozen agency folks stayed for the entire event, signed up volunteers (as many as 10 for some groups) and actually participated in the workshop. There were about 60 job seekers. The building could accommodate 150 participants, so we were about at half capacity. Was this a problem? No way! This was one of those special events where sacred space was opened up. And we all viewed this event as the doorway for deepening our connections with others and touching our community with the Pay It Forward Concept. QUESTION #2: ANY INTERESTING STORIES COME OUT OF THE EVENT? Yes. One of the most powerful sections of the workshop was Meri Aaron Walker's piece on networking and her discussion of Kevin Kelly's new rules for the information economy. Meri's piece nicely summarized the workshop, amplified the Pay It Forward spirit, and enabled everyone to get a 1000% return on the day by sharing ideas with each other. Here's the link to her presentation: http://abilitynow.com/Sharing/slides/maw1.htm. The workshop participants made all sorts of meaningful connections of personal and professional resources during Meri's section. Several consultants at the workshop volunteered their time to participants to explore career and work transition issues. I know that lives will change because of this. In terms of other neat stories, this experience gave one woman much-needed love and support to cope with a miscarriage. Many of the nonprofits got more volunteers than they imagined and they have pledged to do this event again (and we may have found a future sponsor). Most importantly, we've met some of the event participants out at local networking opportunities. In summary, the participants are getting out, volunteering, and interviewing -- Paying It Forward! Namaste, |
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