ASLU 103: Creative Canadian Dee de los Santos - Giving Back

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This episode is brought to you by Fine Lime Designs Illustrations

Vancouver based writer and PR professional Dee de los Santos talks about her creative journey and how, after spending over a decade building the popular blog Gastrofork, she is now leveraging her platform, social presence and relationship building skills to give back to the causes she's passionate about.

As well as her PR and marketing career and her blog, she sits on the BC Women’s Hospital Foundation’s Young Women Council as Communications Lead and is the Children’s Heart Network of BC’s Event Coordinator for their annual wine gala. In recent years, Dee started the “Heart Box Project”, a growing initiative sending celebration boxes to children living with Congenital Heart Defects.

This Episode Is For…

This is a great episode for creatives who:

  • want to find a way to give back to their community

  • want to give back but aren't sure how to get started or what they can do

  • aren't sure that they have a platform that can create change

  • may not realize they already have the skill set to make giving back a reality

If you just want the links to the resources mentioned in this episode, scroll down to the bottom.

Listen To the Episode

Here’s a link to this week’s episode. You can also listen via the player below or on your favourite podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, and more). Just search for And She Looked Up!

your voice can create change

in this episode we discuss:

  • Dee’s creative journey from creative kid to PR professional

  • what inspired her to start her food blog, Gastrofork

  • being a “Heart Mom” and how that gave her the idea for the Heart Box Project and her work with the Children’s Heart Network

  • getting involved with championing women’s health (in the episode Dee referenced a stat she was unsure of in regards to women participating in health and disease studies - she followed up with me after we recorded to clarify the information: fewer than 10% of all fundamental research studies look exclusively at female subjects. This information comes from Vancouver’s Women’s Health Research Institute)

  • leveraging small neighbourhood grants (and larger grants) to get your project launched

  • how building one on one relationships with people she’s encountered in the healthcare field and with the local small businesses she has worked with in her blog have helped her to bring her giving back projects to life (and keep supporting them)

  • how being genuine and passionate with your asks for help goes a long way

  • how sometimes just sharing the causes you are passionate about can bring people out of the woodwork who want to help!

  • how she hopes to grow the Heart Box Project

  • her work with the BC Women’s Hospital Foundation’s Young Women Council and how she’s using the role to bring more diverse wellness experts to the conversation.

  • how you can take the first steps to using your skills and your social platforms to start to get more involved and more supporting of causes you are passionate for

  • the ways you can support causes beyond a monetary donation

  • using platforms like ko-fi and patreon to raise funds.

Mentioned In This Episode:

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Podcast Episode, Inspiring WomenMelissa HartfielS3, creative enterpreneurshp, writing a book, writer, authorComment