Yesterday was the final Get Real Provincewide meeting. Holy crap that went by fast! It seems like just yesterday Maria Luisa and I were reviewing applications from youth all over Ontario but when I think about how close I now feel to the selected members of the team I realize that we did cover a lot of ground. After all, in a matter of weeks the Get Real volunteers designed a promotional poster and a PSA that’s airing this week!

It is always exciting for me to co-facilitate a project with mindyourmind volunteers because I started at mindyourmind as a volunteer. It is very interesting to see projects from the “other side” and is equally rewarding as being a volunteer, but in a different way. Every time I work with volunteers I am blown away by the passionate and dedicated youth involved.

For the Get Real project, I think all participants were a bit overwhelmed with the enormity of the task at hand, especially since we would only be meeting face-to-face once or twice during the whole project. Armed with “Gotomeeting” software and telephones our first meeting largely consisted of pairing pictures with the voices of the participants. We quickly progressed, however, and I was so impressed with how adaptable and creative everyone was with each step of our process.

As you might recall, participants blogged during the process of the Get Real campaign, updating the world on our progress as a team. We had fun ice breakers, a lot of brainstorming, and some an amazing poster and PSA at the end.

I’m sad now that the project is over but what’s so great is that each time I look at the poster we designed and the PSA that was filmed, I am reminded of bits and pieces of the whole process and the people behind them. I hope the awesome volunteers from Get Real will stay involved with mindyourmind!

For the Get Real members, please leave good-bye comments below, especially if you couldn’t make it to the meeting last night!

- By Erin