A million raised step by step for perseverance

Article from the Journal La Tribune on February 14, 2016, by Jean-François Gagnon

(MAGOG) Editor's note - School perseverance is everyone's business. Parents, teachers, loved ones, stakeholders, professionals, school administrators, business people, elected officials, all have a role to play in the school perseverance of young people and are, or can become, superheroes of school perseverance. This year, Hooked on School Days (JPS), which takes place from February 15 to 19, is an opportunity to highlight some stories of support for the school perseverance of these superheroes and to tell about initiatives taken in certain schools. Reports to read all week!

The first ten years of existence of the Christian Vachon Foundation have been in the image of its founder, a man who does nothing by halves. Having raised $1 million to date, the organization has grown rapidly and today plays a crucial role in the lives of hundreds of children in the region.

A top athlete, Christian Vachon launched the foundation that bears his name in 2006 by running a full lap around Lake Memphremagog, a 42-kilometer-long body of water. He repeated his feat last year to give new impetus to the organization he founded.

“The mission of the Christian Vachon Foundation is perseverance. It is a value that has a super great importance in my mind. Along with self-confidence, perseverance is probably the most important thing for success in life,” says the organization's founder.

Christian Vachon emphasizes that, in his view, persevering necessarily implies encountering difficulties. "It's when we do difficult things that require effort," he says.

Having recently become the owner of a sports store in Magog, Christian Vachon confides that he himself had to put in a lot of effort to be successful in school. “One day, I understood that, to have an interesting future, I would have to work harder in class. I was lucky to see that when I was young. Others realize too late that perseverance is crucial."

"Because of their family situation, young people are forced to have different priorities from others."

He notes that he decided to create his foundation because he had noticed a “hole” in the Quebec educational model. “I felt that there were things to do for perseverance,” he recalls, before adding that his organization's interventions sometimes change lives.

The starting line

The Magogois considers it essential to offer all children equal opportunities to experience success in school. For that, it is important, according to him, to fight against poverty.

“Because of their family situation, young people are forced to have different priorities from others. When the question of food and clothing, for example, represents a problem, it is more complicated. We want all the children to start on the same starting line in order to prevent some from being marginalized,” he underlines.

Organizing a major benefit event every year, the Christian Vachon Foundation is able to provide young people with clothing, school materials and lunches. It also sometimes pays, in whole or in part, the cost of registration for sports or cultural activity.

Every year, 450 young people from the region benefit from the support of the Christian Vachon Foundation, an organization with several committed and visionary volunteers. No school in the Commission scolaire de la Région-de-Sherbrooke has yet signed an agreement with the foundation, but discussions to that effect have been initiated.

A new sponsorship system set up by the foundation allows people in the community to directly support pre-targeted children by granting them a sum ranging from $150 to $600 for one year. “The sustainability of my organization depends on sponsorships, which involve local residents,” says Christian Vachon.