A Beautifully Full Season

Fall Walks

Hello everyone!

My apologies for the long break since my last update. It has been a very full fall. I'm excited to share some updates with you about what has been happening at HFL and personally this season.

We launched into a full fall with lots of teams travelling around the world and our annual Fundraiser on the horizon. So far this year, HFL has facilitated 15 trips, over 200 people, for our local Canadian partners to travel and work alongside our international partners, as well as 16 trips for our staff for monitoring projects and assessing new potential for HFL. It's impactful to see how many people engage in projects in the 14 countries we work in, and how there is global impact but also incredible heart change for the team members that go on these trips. A beautiful exchange of care, love, and God working in and through so many people.

A big focus of my time this fall was the HFL annual fundraiser. HFL holds the 100% model meaning 100% of funds donated to projects go directly there to maintain transparency on where funds go, however, that leaves a gap in covering our operational overhead and the fundraiser is a way we raise part of that gap.

Set Up Time!

This year our team went ALL OUT leaning into our theme of transportation, taking our guests on a journey and arriving at a destination of our vision, seeing Thriving Global Communities. Our communications team worked hard at creating statistic passports, safety cards highlighting our live auction items and boarding passes as our invitations. We even filmed a flight attendant welcome video to give guests a comedic welcome and information for the evening.

Our fundraiser focused on our plans for next year, having a more intentional focus on International Leadership Development for our international partners. We were able to celebrate what God has done this past year and how He continues to move through HFL and all the partners we work with.

My role for the fundraiser was to oversee the silent auction. We had 150 items donated and almost all of the items leveraged for more money than the retail value. It was a lot of hard work to gather the items, input the details about each one into our bidding system, take photos of each item and then take it to the venue and display it for guests to view. It all paid off seeing how much was raised for operations! We were very happy to share that from the fundraiser $231k was raised for HFL operations which is a huge amount raised heading into 2025!

Overall the fundraiser was a beautiful event filled with a lot of moments taken back by the incredible organization I get to be a part of. I was blessed to have some really close friends join for the evening, and of course, my plus 1 that I couldn't do any of this without!

The rest of the fall at HFL has involved booking some trips for early next year, continuing to communicate with our clients from Fullwell- focusing on non-profit leadership coaching and consulting, and supporting the HFL leadership team as we finalize the 2025 budget and have our final board meeting for the year. We had an opportunity to gather all of our international partners on a Zoom call to share some areas of focus for next year, as well as having a time for them to connect and interact. We had over 50 people join from 13 countries which was really beautiful to see and be a part of (even at 5:30 am which is when we hosted the meeting thanks to timezones)!

Small Group Girlies at Youth Retreat

Outside of work, Caleb and I have had almost every weekend filled with some activity and event. We started the school year continuing our commitment to youth leading through the church we attend, Broadway Church. This year I am co-leading grade 10 girls and Caleb leads grade 11/12 boys. We both feel so blessed to be in the place of mentoring these students and walking with them through life. Every Tuesday night takes some energy and commitment but we leave feeling more filled after meaningful interactions with these students. We had a weekend away at a youth retreat with them this past weekend which was a really fun time of games, sessions, and vulnerable raw worship times.

We have had lots of meaningful times of community in this season. We saw some close friends get married and supporting another friend taking a huge step of faith in getting baptized. We attended a weekend young adults retreat at a cabin near Mount Baker in Washington, which was an intentional time of rest amid lots going on. We had a friend host a house concert of local artists and have snuck in a few date nights in the midst of it all.

I love the full seasons but also really excited for life to slow down a bit before Christmas celebrations.

Looking back I'm continually in awe of God and how He called me to Chilliwack and HFL. I marked one year in Chilliwack beginning of November which seems like so long ago and yet time has passed so fast. I feel more settled and rooted here, with an incredible community around me and a job I feel so passionate about. There is truly so much to be thankful for!

I also look back and see how God, through lots of people around me, has continually been my provider. Through so many donations I have been able to have been working almost full-time for almost a full year! I feel humbled often by the simple generosity of those around me, for those that I'm close with and those that are strangers.

That being said, my goal for this season is to hit my financial support goal to increase my hours and work full-time! I'm looking to add 18 hours a month to what I am doing right now and looking ahead to the new year, I'm going to be filling those hours quickly. This can be monthly recurring support or a one-time donation. If you want to support me in this way of closing this gap, you can reach out by email (cwatkins@hungryforlife.org) or follow the 'partner' tab above and it will describe different ways you can set up support. HFL issues tax receipts for all donations and matches all staff support by 20%, making your donation go further!

Thank you to each of you for your ongoing prayer, support and care for me and my role in HFL! Praying that you all have a wonderful start to the Christmas season and find moments of God's unwavering peace in whatever situation you're facing.

Love Always,

Char