Hope "flash mob" at the Rhizome Cafe

Last night a diverse group of people meet up for two hours in what felt like a "flash mob" event. You know the ones? Complete strangers meeting outside the art gallery to have a pillow fight or kiss or something?

Well there was no pillow fighting, but our "Hope in Shadows flash mob event" packed a lot into two hours. It was organized to get feedback on how Hope in Shadows is doing and it was the first time we had done something like this in the seven years the project has been running. Meeting at the Rhizome Cafe was a great idea. Not in the Downtown Eastside, but not in the financial district downtown, I believe an alternative cafe on East Broadway was a perfect place for executive directors and street calendar vendors to sit over together in an effort to work out what Hope in Shadows means to them.

Highlights included the video about the photography contest by Daniel Froidebaux and the short speeches by key Hope in Shadows people. Garvin Snider explained how he has been involved in the contest since the first cameras were handing out in 2003 and has progressed to selling the calendar and training the other vendors to sell, and even had two winning photos in the calendar (2006 and 2009). A highlight for him was handing a calendar to Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean when she visited the Downtown Eastside in 2008 and having her personally write to thank him.

John Mastrodonato from Sterling Sentinal spoke from a Champion Community Builder's point of view. He said that the project was fully supported by his colleagues and that they felt proud to be helping the community of the Downtown Eastside where they do so much work. He read out a few words from executive director Chu Wu who said that "Hope in Shadows represents the best of a positive and effective community project – it engages a lot of people in the community, it gives many people a message of hope, it celebrates the art of photography, it produces a nice calendar and it create some meaningful opportunities to people for distributing the calendars.” John added that he believes that people make choices in their lives and that Hope in Shadows was the result of many people making the right choice.

Vancity manager of organization, development and learning Simon Fuller gave an entertaining rendition of the financial planning workshop that he and Michele Quan gave to calendar vendors in December on how to manage their money. He said that goals set ranged from going back to Ottawa to visit family to buying a case of beer for New Year's, adding that those goals were probably not that different from colleagues of his when he first started working at Vancity! Michele Quan said that she enjoyed the workshop, adding that her branch of Vancity on Commercial Drive has enjoyed helping the calendar vendors by being a distribution point for the calendar for several years.

The second part of the meeting focused on three questions about how they feel about Hope in Shadows. The four groups were hosted by calendar vendors, with a Pivot intern writing down the ideas. The highlight was when one person from each group reported back to the main group with street vendor Georges Maltais, while summing up his group, expressing how much it has changed his life and how much it means to him.

The evening ended with an emotional rendition from the Hope in Shadows book by Helen Hill about how she learned to read at the age of 40, then a lighter story she had published recently in Vancouver's street magazine Megaphone about saving for retirement.

After the event finished and people left it was amazing to realize how much had been expressed in such a short timespan. Here's hoping we have a Hope in Shadows "flash mob" meeting of minds again soon.