Happy New Year! Hope you had an amazing time last night and that you are waking today with beautiful dreams for 2025.
Later this year YACC will turn 25. Getting older is a privilege we don’t take for granted.
I believe every win is a team win.
I believe most leaders get a disproportionate amount of the credit for the success of their teams.
YACC is a beautiful example of both.
We started with a golf tournament on June 15, 2000 when 150 golfers came out to support an idea that had energy, but no real play—yet. That same month, three high school principals (John, Derrick, and Allister) agreed to partner with us to engage their students in our brand new—and very much evolving—education program to talk to students about cancer and life’s challenges.
And we were off.
I was five per cent planning, 95 per cent give’r. Though in my defence, I had spent over a year marinating on this idea as I worked through and recovered from my first bone marrow transplant.
The earliest efforts around YACC were guided by some key mentors and my own intuition.
My mentor and friend, Gary, wisely said, “Get the program right, everything else will take care of itself.” I took those words and planted them deep next to my new bone marrow.
My mentor and friend, Jeff, responded to one of my many emails with these life-changing words: “The determinant of one’s growth is the degree to which they are willing to be truly open.” For me, openness had to be a two-way street. Sharing my cancer experience publicly remains one of the most powerful decisions I’ve made in my life.
My intuition told me I could continue sharing my experience in various ways. It told me that I could create emotional engagement with others, deliver a message, and then invite them to engage with me. I’ve been repeating these steps for 25 years.
Those golfers came back year after year, those three principals opened the door for me to speak to 75,000 students across Canada, and as we turned three, we locked into our first strategic planning process that laid the foundation for YACC today.
As you may have guessed, in 2003 there wasn’t a Canadian charity focused on the unique challenges facing young adults in their late teens, 20s, and 30s, much less their mental health. Our strategy then became, and remains today, to support those young adults living with, through, and beyond cancer.
Literally millions of Canadians have touched our organization to create this YACC win of hitting 25 years. On behalf of the 6,000 YACCers in our community, coast to coast to coast, thank you for your connection to YACC. We have beautiful plans for 2025 and can’t wait to share them with you.
Always…
Live life. Love life.
Geoff
