Family Dinner with @BostonPizza #BPKidsCards: Perfect Teachable Moment

Food for Thought: Making a family dinner about more than food. 

We all know how important eating together as a family is, but you'll really raise the bar on the impact sharing a meal together as a family can have by purchasing a Boston Pizza Kids Card for a minimum donation of $5. starting now until October 2nd, 2016. 

With a single $5. donation you create a teachable moment, help kids in need by supporting mentorship opportunities, and get 5 free* Boston Pizza kids meals. 

As my boys head to college and university this September, I reflect on the efforts it took to get to this point, and the resources my husband and I invested to help get them here. They've benefited from close and engaged relationships with their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and have no shortage of impressive role models and mentors in their family to choose from. I think about the importance of youth having people in their lives to teach, guide and model positive behaviour, and just how lucky my kids are. 

Sadly this isn't the case for all kids. Not everyone grows up with access to role models. mentors, mentoring programs, and financial resources to help navigate life's challenges and choices. This is why the Boston Pizza Kids Card Campaign is so important. For a minimum of a $5. donation (available now - Oct 2, 2016) you can purchase #BPKidsCards to help ensure many more kids in Canada get support and access to role models and mentoring programs. Each $5. BPKids Card purchased provides an hour with a role model for a child in need. 

Plus your Boston Pizza Kids Card gets you 5 free* meals. That's a $35. value! If you register your BP Kids Card with a MyBP account you'll get another free kids meal, making it 6 free* meals for $5.

By involving your child in the process of purchasing a BP Kids Card you have an opportunity to teach them how this donation helps the Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects to provide more than 200, 000 hours of mentorship to Canadian children and youth. It's an opportunity to teach them about giving back, charity and about the incredible organizations who partner with Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects and together provide support, role models and mentorship programs to kids who would otherwise have none.

For more than 25 years Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects has raised more than $22 million and partnered with organizations and charities such as: 

• Big Brother Big Sister Canada: Helps 1000's of youth with mentoring programs and the funds raised help them "extend and expand mentoring services to new communities and youth who do not currently have access to mentoring programs".
• JDRF Canada: BP Kids Cards help to fund "youth ambassador programs which provide mentorship to young people living with T1D (Type 1 diabetes).
• Kids Help Phone: Donations help to fund their "national professional counselling services" to youth as well as "adult tools and resources and online content on their website".
• Live Different: Funds help Live Different to deliver high school motivational presentations to inspire youth to "embrace a lifestyle that cares about people not stuff".
• Rick Hansen Foundation: The Boston Pizza Foundation helps the Rick Hansen Foundation spread the message of inclusion and reach more than 500,000 kids across Canada each year with its Rick Hansen School Programs. 

All this for just a $5 donation! So while you and your family gather for a delicious meal at Boston Pizza think of all this meal means to you, your kids, your community and the kids you've helped to reach their goals for a bright future. 

Bon appetit!

Yep, just me Cathy thinking out loud about Boston Pizza Kids Cards.

For more information about the Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects and BP Kids Cards follow Boston Pizza on twitter and facebook, and Boston Pizza Foundation on twitter and facebook. 

*Some conditions apply
Note: I have been compensated for my time creating this post. All opinions are my own and on a personal note I have in the past and will continue to support Boston Pizza and Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects in their efforts to give back to the community. I consider it an honour to participate in this campaign.