David Sullivan has eaten dinner in a Philippine slum. Hes helped provide healthcare in African villages where everyone has HIV/AIDS. Hes sat and listened to someone with leprosy tell him that the worst thing is having a rat take away one of your fingers or toes and not even feel it.
But rather than be overwhelmed by how many people in the world need his help, he knows that by doing a whole bunch of little things he can achieve a lot. Sometimes all it takes is buying a chocolate bar.
I think people have a lot more to give than they think they have, says the owner of the Marketplace IGA at the corner of Robson and Richards.
Each year, his store, staff and suppliers help him raise funds for 10 to 15 charities. It can be as easy as giving half the proceeds from a $2 king-size Kit-Kat chocolate bar to Vancouvers Gordon House Youth SEARCH, which helps provide life skills and co-op work placements to at-risk kids. By plopping their change into a donation box near the till, customers can help build a school in Uganda. This summer, every time theres a BC Lions or Whitecaps game at the nearby BC Place, people walking by the store can buy a hotdog or hamburger at the sidewalk barbecue. All the food will have been donated and all the staff will be donating their time to ensure that 100 per cent of each sale goes to charity.
Each event on its own may raise a couple of thousand of dollars not much when compared to the splash that million-dollar events can make but you wont hear any of the beneficiaries complaining. Across the city and around the world, $2,000 can make an immense difference in peoples lives.
I think that if youre lucky enough to have something, you need to share it with people, Sullivan says. And he feels like a very lucky person.
He left home when he was 14 and lived on the streets for a while. Then he found an employer who believed in him. That employer paid for Sullivans executive MBA education, which he used to launch a successful sales and business career. Five years ago, when Sullivan opened the Marketplace IGA, he made a commitment to honour the people who helped him by helping others.
His children, Anthony and Ashleigh, share his commitment, as do the staff at the store. Hes implementing a new program which will have staff suggest what charity to support next, and then help organize the fundraising project that will make it happen.
Future programs include sponsoring a soccer team in the Downtown East Side with a Catholic charity, providing a meal program for the homeless, and funding a program that provides the medication it takes to prevent the spread of leprosy.
