#ImpactYEG - Making Dreams a Reality for Youth
Global Shapers Edmonton is piloting #ImpactYEG, a series aimed at highlighting the amazing work that social service delivery organizations provide in our communities. As a local organization dedicated to uplifting youth experiencing severe chronic or life-threatening illnesses, we sat down with Reuel Thomas from the Rainbow Society of Alberta to discuss the organization’s work in making dreams come true.
CHRIS: Tell us about the story of the organization and how your role fits into its overall mandate.
REUEL: I’m the new Executive Director at the Rainbow Society of Alberta, where I help oversee the big picture and strategic direction of the organization as it relates to our work supporting children and youth across Alberta. I also seek to build strategic relationships in the broader community, doing things like this interview!
The Rainbow Society was founded in 1986 as a registered charity dedicated to granting wishes for children, between the ages of three and eighteen, who reside in Alberta and have been diagnosed with a severe chronic or life-threatening medical illness. At the core, our messaging is about helping fulfill dreams for individuals facing tough situations. We help create an opportunity for light and joy to be shed on the lives of children and youth facing difficult or life-threatening illnesses. This helps translate to better recovery for children and families and perhaps most importantly helps to take their minds off of their current circumstances to give them some reprieve and let their imaginations take hold, like every child deserves.
CHRIS: What do operations look like in your organization? How do you work to grant those wishes?
REUEL: Our organization is local and quite small in terms of staffing. We are grateful to our many dedicated volunteers that help us plan and execute fundraising and other events. Partnerships are also critical to our organization, especially when it comes to fundraising, visibility, and organizing the wishes children referred to us ask for.
Families are typically referred to us from all over Alberta by doctors. If their situations fit within our organization's mandate, we work with the child and their family to create a wish. Oftentimes we will work to get a ‘top 3’ list of sorts from the children to ensure we can do our best to realistically and meaningfully grant their wishes. We typically get a lot of wishes that involve travel, for example, so we work with the families in planning the best possible trip.
One important thing to note is that our mandate is local and very broad. Many would compare our organization to larger ones like the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We are similar but different in the sense we specifically serve Albertan families and we serve children that are afflicted by life-threatening illness and severe chronic illnesses.
CHRIS: Did the COVID-19 Pandemic affect your organization’s operations and capacity in any way?
REUEL: I joined the organization recently, so I can’t speak to any experiences directly but I do know that since a significant percentage of wishes tend to involve travel, the pandemic did hinder our ability to deliver on those dreams. It did result in a bit of a backlog in that sense, but the organization made great efforts to work with families and find solutions in this regard. It also became a challenge to launch fundraising initiatives since there were limitations to in-person events. Virtual fundraising certainly proved to be more challenging, but we adapted the best we could.
CHRIS: How can Edmontonians, and the broader Alberta community, best support your organization?
REUEL: Our future strategy will emphasize getting our name out there. Even though we’ve been active since 1986, we feel many Albertans still might not know about the work that we do, we seem to be a hidden gem so to speak. So that’s the first thing that comes to mind - reach out, learn about us, and share our mission! We’d love for people to understand who we are and how critical our mandate is in creating hope for youth facing severe critical and life-threatening illnesses. Please check us out at https://rainbowsociety.ab.ca/ and feel free to email us to learn more! With our name out there, we also welcome Edmontonians and all Albertans to send us referrals of children or families that would fit our mandate.
Of course, financial donations are hugely important as they allow us to grant wishes. Lastly, we are always on the lookout for volunteers to help us with fundraising and other events.
Christopher Klune
