Aside from being TONS of fun and inspiring the community to commit small acts of kindness, Pay It Backward Day is a wonderful event because it supports one of Canada’s most amazing institutions: The Hospital for Sick Children…aka SickKids Hospital.

When we first entertained the idea of Pay It Backward Day, we reached out to our Daily Challenge community and asked, ‘We want to support a cause. What should it be?’ - the answer was overwhelmingly SickKids Foundation. And now we know why.

Over the past few months, we’ve come to realize that almost everyone in our community knows someone whose life has been touched by this one-of-a-kind hospital. Here at Daily Challenge, we were fortunate enough to connect with a few people who owe their life to their experience at SickKids. Being able to hear each survivor’s personal journey first-hand was truly inspirational - so much so, that we compiled a short 3-minute video of clips from their interviews to share with you.

The video, a montage of powerful clips and interview excerpts, certainly invites goosebumps and perhaps even a tear or two. But, most importantly, its a fabulous reminder as to why everyone should Pay It Backward for SickKids Hospital on September 30th.

Grab some tissues. Check it out. Tweet it. Facebook it. Blog it. Love it.

HUGE thank you’s go to: Jon Lim, our lovely and super patient videographer, as well as to the band Ohbijou for letting us use their beautiful song, “Wildfires.”

Cheers!

On Thursday, June 18, Julian Brass and the Notable team are organizing a massive gathering at Yonge and Dundas square in Toronto to support this year’s National Kids Cancer Ride. Taking advantage of New York Fries’ donation day – where $1 of every regular fries or meal sold will go directly towards the ride – supporters of the cause will purchase fries at either of New York Fries’ two Eaton Centre locations and gather at the square for a great altruistic networking event.  If you’re unavailable to make it to the meet-up the contributions are happening at New York Fries locations the city.

“We want to create the biggest fry meet-up the city has ever seen,” says Brass of the event. “This fun networking event will lead to hundreds of dollars going to support kids living with cancer, thanks to New York Fries’ donation day.”

The goal is to have over 600 people attend tomorrow’s event, so indulge in some fries tomorrow after work and invite all your friends!

The plan is as follows:

5-6pm: Jack Astors in Toronto Life Square is hosting a young professional happy hour which is sponsored by Corona; free Corona upon arrival!

6-6:15pm: Meet at Dundas Square and together as a massive group go to the Eaton center and get some New York Fries. There will be some Notable TV/ New York Fries ambassadors (wearing Gold and Brown referee-like uniforms) helping to direct everyone to 1 of 2 NY Fries locations.

6:30-7:30pm: Head back to Dundas Square to enjoy some delicious New York Fries, shmooze, network and of course … CELEBRATE!!!

RAIN PLAN: There are 2 New York Fries locations in the Eaton Center - one in each food court, at the Queen Street south end and at the Dundas St. north end. If it’s raining out, just meet at one of these two locations.

Please click here for more info and times.

Congratulations goes out to long time DailyChallenge.org Do Gooder Tiffany Strobel of Toronto, Ontario for winning the Robin Sharma Video Contest. Tiffany’s prize is a full access pass ticket to Robin Sharma’s Awakening Best Self Weekend, This June 5-7! (valued at $1495.00)

For more information on Robin Sharma and his Leadership Institute Click Here

Here is a summary of what Tiffany can expect from the event:

This revolutionary 2.5 day program, set in an intimate setting, will provide you with the skills necessary to reach your highest potential, see the world in a new light, inspire you to take immediate action.

* Discover how to recognize challenges as opportunities for wealth creation and rich relationships
* Learn strategies for happiness, personal and professional success
* Discover how thoughts and belief impact success and how to turn this to your advantage
* Break through barriers and limitations
* Discover your passions and a deep sense of purpose
* Have more fun and achieve health and inner wealth

Thank you to everyone who participated and completed the challenge, and for your hard work!

Lets show the world that social media can be used for the greater good and bring this little girl home to her parents.

5 Steps to help bring Victoria (Tori) Stafford home:

1) Watch this short video and SHARE - http://tinyurl.com/FindTori

2) Email 3+ friends with a link to this blog post.

3) Join the facebook group and SHARE - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=78966007726

4) Take today’s challenge and SHARE - http://www.dailychallenge.org/challenges/view.php?id=1125

5) Tell 3 people at work about Tori today.

We know you are all busy but for a moment put yourself in the shoes of her parents who have their world turned upside down. PLEASE take 5 mins out of your day and to help us bring this beautiful little girl home.

Thank you for your help Do Gooders!

We know you guys loved the last pibTO video so here is a slightly shorter, but equally as fun video that our great friend Jon Lim has graciously prepared for us. This video shows Jon’s perspective of our April 04th world record breaking event.

Still brings back a wave of emotions and great memories. Well done Jon!

Not sure about you guys, but I have been walking around with a silly smile on my face since Saturday afternoon. The energy from Pay It Backward Day was electrifying and has many of us feeling like anything is possible …and you know what, that was exactly the point. We wanted to demonstrate that when we work together even a small act of kindness, like buying the person behind you a coffee, can can make a BIG impact.

I know breaking a world record for acts of coffee kindness won’t exaclty abolish war or famine or poverty and that our little event didn’t raise enought funds to open a new wing at the SickKids Hospital, but hopfully it did show people that doing good is not only the right thing to do, but that it can also be wicked FUN!

At the end of the day we had an amazing time, brought out lots of great local performers, athletes and celebrity Do Gooders and ended up making history and setting a new world record, all while raising both money and awareness for an amazing local charity.

Over the past few days we have been getting a lot of praise for the event and I wanted to take a moment to recognize the genius team behind the scenes. This event existed because of their dedication and goodwill. I am humbled to have been apart of this amazing event and will never forget all of you beautiful people.

Top Row: Satish Kanwar, Dan Hocking, Benny Banipal Pushpinder (Second Cup owner), Andrew Peek, Jon Lim, Suresh Doss and Bretton MacLean.

Second Row: Verne Ho, Tiffany Storbel, Kamwal Pushpinder, Afshin Mousavian, Pamela Dennis, Erin Bury, Darius Bashar, Idan Nulman Rida Rehmani,

Front Row: Cheryl Ho, Golbarg Tafreshi and Martin Rubio

Not In Picture - Casie Stewart, Nina, Shayan Safaei, Ash Mousavian, Scott Stratten and Tiffany Shum

I also wanted to send a special shout out to the pibTO cheer squad that stuck it out in the ridiculously cold weather and kept all of our spirts up with their warm smiles and hilarious jokes. You guys made the day even more memorable! This city is so full of LOVE that I just can help but ooze with gratitude everytime I think about Saturday!

I think Verne Ho said it best when he tweeted “I love every single person that was a part of #pibto”. #perfect!

On Saturday April 04th-2009 hundreds of Torontonians came out to a local coffee shop in the heart of the city to prove that when we unite over small acts of kindness, we can collectively create a big impact - and eventually change the world.

We want to thank everyone who came out to support the cause. We love each and everyone of you!

For information on our next event email us at events{at}dailychallenge{dot}org.

Special THANK YOU to Suresh and Nina of www.spotlighttoronto.com for this amazing video. Thank you for helping us share our story with the world!

We are happy to announce the launch of Daily Challenge 2.0! Our new website will officially go live on Tuesday March 03, 2009 at 11 PM EST. There will be many new upgrades and features that intend to enhance user the experience and allow our Do Gooders to more easily inspire and be inspired.

Over the past 4 months we have had the privilege of making personal connections with many of our users and have developed a strong in-depth perspective of their experiences in our social network.

We know DailyChallenge.org has a long way to go before we can truly create sustainable and massive change, but we want you all to know that we are 1000% committed to achieving that goal.

Our Creative Director, Verne Ho will be sharing a more detailed walk-through of all the new features of DC 2.0 in a blog post scheduled for Wednesday. In the meantime, you can check out a sneak preview of the new interface.

Important Note:

DailyChallenge.org will be down from 5 PM - 11 PM (EST) on Tuesday March 3, 2009 during the upgrading process.

Special Thanks:

The Daily Challenge Team would like to take this opportunity to thank YOU the users for all your support and patience.

Over the past 4 months we have received over 1000+ feedback forms, most of which were thoughtful and considerate suggestions on how we could improve our website.

Without your support this project would neither exist or be worth the effort. We are humbled to be working on a project with such passionate and committed users. We hope you enjoy the new site and look forward to your feedback!

Sincerely,

Daily Challenge Team

Every time we turn on the TV/Radio or browse through the net we are bombarded with a plethora of bad news. We all know that there are lots of very serious issues going on throughout our precious planet, but that does not mean that our focus must always be placed on how horrible things are.

This segment of The Do Gooder Daily will be committed to sharing positive and uplifting news. Every week we will be showcasing stories, pictures and video posts that demonstrate the good in humanity. We hope you enjoy it and encourage you to submit your own Good News so that we can share it with all of our readers.

To share your stories email us at goodnews {at} dailychallenge {dot} org.

Good News Links For Feb 15 2009: Continue Reading

Did you know that over a billion (with a “B”) people all over the world go without access to clean and safe drinking water everyday.

Well up until recently neither did I.  Thanks to the folks at Twestival now I not only am more educated about this very important global issue, but also have specific actions I can take to do my part in finding a solution to this massive problem.

I first heard about Twestival from our Creative Director Verne who sent me a link and said it would be right up my alley. Shortly thereafter a friend of mine and fellow  Do Gooder Casie Stewart called me (actually I think it was that same day) and told me that Twestival was coming to Toronto and that Daily Challenge had to get involved because it represented everything we stood for.

Continue Reading