News
Outstanding Fundraising Volunteer Award to Susan Drover
We’re honoured to spend National Philanthropy Day celebrating Susan Drover for her inspired contributions as a Stella’s Circle Foundation Board member. Today, the Association of Fundraising Professionals NL recognized Susan with the award for “Outstanding Fundraising Volunteer” and we couldn’t agree more!
In fall 2023, Susan Drover reached out to Stella’s Circle wanting to make a real difference in her community. She was already a small business owner in the Georgestown neighbourhood and supporter of our Hungry Heart Café. We immediately loved her energy and enthusiasm for strengthening our neighbourhood, and our community. She joined our Foundation Board not long after.
Susan had a deep desire to be useful and to actively work in support of our mission. She’s someone who really shows up for the organization however she can and gives a lot of herself. She was inspired by the potential in our dining room in Rawlins Cross. The Hungry Heart Cafe had a 17 year legacy in Rawlins Cross as our flagship social enterprise. It’s provided meaningful training and employment to Stella’s Circle participants and since the pandemic became a leader working to address food insecurity. The Hungry Heart was about to move to a new home that would be a better space for our training and food security programs. Susan came to us in the spring with her idea for a social enterprise transformation, allowing us to imagine the social impact that could still be created in Rawlins Cross.
She put together a design plan for us in-kind, with her SAM Design team and other amazing community partners. The transformation of this space from lunch time cafe to evening fine dining restaurant was a once-in-a-lifetime gift for us. Susan not only contributed her expertise in-kind as the Founder and Creative Designer at SAM, but sourced and secured all of the financial and in kind donations that made the project possible.
Susan has been a gift to Stella’s Circle. Her generous spirit, tireless efforts, and her philosophy that a high tide floats all boats has allowed us to create community together in an incredible way. Thanks to Susan, we have been able to grow our impact and provide more employment training and more work opportunities for people facing barriers in our community. Through her outstanding fundraising and volunteerism, she’s given us the chance to honour our legacy of building a more inclusive, compassionate community through shared food and conversation. Susan gave us the opportunity to transform our corner of Rawlins Cross into something really special and something that could create more social good for years to come. Thank you, Susan!