Dwayne Peace, Dare To Care, interview at Brett Wilson’s Garden Party 2011

About 1,000 people attended Brett Wilson’s Garden Party 2011, and the cause this year is Dare To Care. I think what Dare To Care does is important work (especially in our SMS, Facebook age). Have a read of Dare To Care‘s intro (emphasis added),

“The Dare To Care program is a fully comprehensive approach to dealing with bullying and challenges within school communities. This comprehensive approach involves students, teachers, parents and the community in an effort to eliminate bullying and other dangerous behaviours from their schools and, in turn, create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect.

The Dare to Care program helps school communities, from Kindergarten to Grade 12, create a common language which then allows for more consistent intervention and follow through when dealing with challenging issues.“

The attendees of Garden Party 2011 (along with a $100K matching fund from Government of Alberta) raised over $300K for Dare To Care!

The following is my video interview with Dwayne Peace, one of Dare To Care‘s facilitator, at Brett Wilson’s Garden Party 2011.

The following are a few highlights of my video interview with Dwayne,

0:00 Dwayne introduces himself and tells us what Dare To Care does.

0:40 Dwayne talks about a typical half day or full day programs that Dare To Care gives in a school.

1:57 With the avent of social media tools like texting, Facebook, Twitter, I ask Dwayne to talk about what kind of things the program tries to teach the kids.

2:34 Has Dare To Care done any studies or data collections to find out the effectiveness of the programs?

3:15 For example, how long Dare To Care has been working with the school in Vancouver? (4 years) And what’s their experience like?

3:44 Dare To Care is the featured organization of the charitable component of Brett Wilson’s Garden Party 2011, I asked Dwayne to talk about how has this come about and how will the money impact Dare To Care?

4:14 Dare To Care is, strictly speaking, not a “charitable organization”, I asked Dwayne how does that work and what is the plan.

5:14 Dwayne talks about planning to spread the funds raised at the party to last for a few years.

[Kempton’s note: At the time of the interview, Dwayne didn’t know $300K+ was raised. I will ask Dwayne a brief followup questions now he knows the amount raised.]

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Jun 26, 2011 Update: In a brief email followup with Dwayne, I asked him to briefly tell me how you and others at Dare To Care feel now you know $300K+ was raised at the party? Do they have a rough idea of how the money is planned to be used?

The following is Dwayne’s reply in full, with **emphasis added by me**.

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HI Kempton;

Thank you for the work that you did and are doing. To say that we are overwhelmed by the financial support would be a huge understatement. The verbal support received at the Garden Party was also amazing once people were able to hear more of what we are doing in communities and the power of the Dare to Care program.

The money will be used 100% to reduce the costs to all Alberta Schools. This will allow more Alberta Schools to have Dare to Care involved within their school and community. For some schools this Garden Party will allow them to have Dare to Care at their school for more than one day.

We are currently working with a person in British Columbia whom is personally funding four schools in Port Moody. He is now aware of the Garden Party and he is thinking of ways that would allow funds to be raised for schools throughout B.C. as well. All of this is very exciting because in the end it is the schools and students that win.

Take care and have a great day and once again thank you for your support.

Dwayne