If you're looking to book a vacation, you need to be on Twitter this Monday, November 30th for the #TransatAuction. Not only will you be able to bid on your dream trip in real time on Twitter, but all proceeds earned during this day long online auction go directly to SOS Villages. Not to mention, it's fun! This is what I call a win/win situation.
There are all kinds of trips being put up for auction, such as:
With starting bids as low as $5, you'll have a great shot at getting an incredible price for a dream vacation while knowing you're giving back to an amazing organization.
I first heard about SOS Villages a couple of years ago when my friend Emma Waverman was invited to the Dominican Republic for a firsthand look at what the organization is doing for orphaned children. She documented her experience on the SOS Canada website and it was extremely moving. Many countries are struggling to take care of thousands of children who have been orphaned and are homeless due to the deaths of their mothers.
SOS Villages is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides caring family homes to more than 80,000 orphaned and abandoned children in 134 countries. It warms my heart that Transat has been supporting SOS Children’s Villages since 2009 and has changed the lives of more than 25,000 vulnerable children. They've already raised over 2 million dollars thanks to various initiatives including the previous Transat Auctions which have raised $68,000.
This is the kind of social responsibility that rings true for me. Transat is committed to helping orphaned and abandoned children in many of its destination countries, providing them with safe, loving homes, food, education, healthcare and a future filled with hope. I was at a Transat blogger event last month where the Transat staff shared stories about their work with the organization. It's meaningful and it's actually making a difference.
So now it's your turn! Put this in your calendar: 3rd annual #TransatAuction on Cyber Monday November 30th. There will be 20 auction lots going up for bid during the day. Up for bid are all-inclusive packages to popular Sun destinations like Mexico, Curaçao, Panama and St. Maarten, as well as roundtrip flights to Europe. You can even tweet'n bid in your pyjamas!
To participate and bid, you have to follow the @AirTransat Twitter account, or search the hashtag #TransatAuction. For more details about the #TransatAuction and the trips that will be up for bid, go to transatauction.ca. Good luck. I'll be the one in pyjamas bidding against you!
What a night! Champagne corks were popping in kitchens all across Canada as the YMC team (those who didn't have to be at parent/teacher night) were onstage at the Phoenix Club in Toronto, celebrating our huge wins at this year’s Canadian Online Publishing Awards (aka COPA awards).
We are thrilled to announce that YummyMummyClub.ca and the YMC Works team took home four BIG awards at the COPA awards gala..
First of all, we won GOLD for Best Use of Social Media. This makes me so happy because - let's face it - the way we've connected with so many of our readers and writers is through social media. The YMC team basically lives on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
A big shout out goes to Sharon DeVellis who rocks our Facebook page, our hilarious and hardworking Community Manager Candace Derickx, Nicole MacPherson who is the big heart behind Twitter, stylish Ashley MacIssac who handles our Pinterest boards and Katja Wulfers who beautifies our Instagram. I also want to thank Karen Elliot - technical guru supreme - for keeping us sane and the site running, not only when we changed our entire site layout and converted to mobile-friendly last year, but also every day with our frantic tech emails.
And a huge virtual hug to the #YMCCommunity, a powerful group of moms (and some dads!) who partner with us to produce and connect using social media. Most importantly, a BIG thank you to everyone who visits YMC and comments, likes, and shares what we do. If there is no you, there would be no YMC. End of story.
Remember the awesome Dove Beautiful You stories we posted last year? As part of it, my daughter made this video about why she thinks I'm beautiful which ripped my heart out. Remember all those Self Esteem Workshops we held in Loblaws and Superstores across the country? Well, thanks to EVERYONE who shared their stories, attended the events, and enjoyed the posts, YMC won GOLD for Best Online Campaign for this program about self esteem. In particular, hugs and high fives to Jen Charron, Cassandra Sadek, Jenn Perchand, Gwen Leron - the gang who worked so hard to bring this to life. And a big hug to our friends at Dove who trust us with their stories, and our partners at Harbinger and InMarketing who let us do our thang.
If that wasn't enough, we also won SILVER in the same category for our Elmer’s Freestyle Clean Up Your Clutter program! Remember the Random Acts of Organization video series we shot in some of our YMC readers' homes? I even got my messy desk organized in one of the videos. I’m so happy that our partners from Elmer’s Canada and Quadrant Marketing (Match Marketing Group) let us have so much fun with their Freestyle products. Thanks to Cassandra Sadek who organized all the chaos, Maija Craig for masterminding this project and Gwen Leron for producing it.
The biggest surprise was at the end of the night. We were all getting ready to head home thinking all the awards had been given out, when YMC received the Reader’s Digest Best of Canada award, winning GOLD for Independent Publisher of the Year. Huge shout out to Jeni Marinucci, fearless and funny editor of YMC. Together with Sharon DeVellis, they are a creative force cooking up an editorial feast for all of us every. single. day. And of course, YMC is written by a extremely talented hand-picked team of 50 writers who share their hearts and expertise on the site. Without their voices, there would be no YMC.
What can I say? I am just blown away and so proud to be honoured for our entrepreneurship and the blood, sweat and tears of my incredible, hard-working team. A big shout out to Jen Charron, who has been the sane ying to my crazy yang.
And finally, thank you to the team at Masthead (hi, Martin Seto!) for organizing these awards and to all the judges who volunteer their time to adjudicate them.
It's amazing what a bunch of passionate people can accomplish working virtually from their kitchens. Moms rock!
And YMC is in great company - the full list of winners can be seen here.
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