It’s always such a surreal experience reflecting back on the year you had. They say the only time you should look back is to see how far you’ve come, and we can certainly say that we’ve come a long way since the foundation first launched in 2010. There were so many monumental moments in 2019 and we wanted to reflect back and share a few of them with the people who helped us get to where we are today.
January 30th, 2019
This was such a monumental pass for the foundation. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, passed ConvoPlate 451 to George Cope, CEO of Bell Canada! Oh, and did we mention this was on Bell Let’s Talk Day?! It couldn’t be more fitting as this day is all about promoting mental health dialogue and keeping the conversation going, which we promote with ConvoPlate every day of the year.
April 2, 2019
We travelled to Oshawa, Ontario to hold a ConvoPlate session with the Oshawa Storm Ringette Association, who hand-painted beautiful ConvoPlates.
Darryl Mathers, 2nd Vice President of Oshawa Storm Ringette Association, passed ConvoPlate 809 to Oshawa Storm’s President Greg Finlay. Darryl is also the Communications Officer for Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, where we also hosted a ConvoPlate session in 2018. Thank you to Darryl, Greg, the ringette team, and of course Michelle Lynn of the Art Gallery of Burlington for helping us to keep the conversation going!
May 9, 2019
Get a ConvoPlate into the hands of the Prime Minister of Canada…CHECK! Did this really happen?! Canadian PM Justin Trudeau accepted ConvoPlate 753 on this unforgettable day. Huge thank you goes out to The Honourable Karina Gould, for this would not have been possible without her help. We’re incredibly grateful to have had Karina on our side from the beginning.
June 11, 2019
Every year, to honour Men’s Mental Health Week in June, we host a Men’s Breakfast For Mental Health. At these breakfasts, we feature keynote speakers who share their stories and lived experience to help break down the existing stigmas about men and mental health. Phrases like “be a man” or “man up” perpetuate the idea that men are expected to keep it together all the time, and that expressing emotion or a need for help means a loss of masculinity. We’re so grateful to Darcy Patrick, John Vereecke, Andy Fantuz, Al Duncan, and Mary Ann Baynton for captivating our audience with their words and helping to break these stigmas. Check out our past blog post to read more about this event: https://www.paulhansellfoundation.com/blog/mens-breakfast-for-mental-health-june-11-2019/.
July 3, 2019
Bien joué! The first ever French ConvoPlate made its way into circulation! Dr. Mélanie Joanisse, a psychologist for the Hôpital Montfort’s Clinical Psychology Service in Ottawa, accepted ConvoPlate 802, the first ever all French plate
To keep the conversation going, Mélanie then made an incredible pass to Bernard Leduc, CEO of Hôpital Montfort! We also recently redesigned our ConvoPlate boxes so that they are now bilingual!
Thanks for reading Part 1 of our 2019 Year In Review! Check back again soon for Part 2!
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