I was 14 years old and the Easter holidays were about to start. All across the island of Barbados, school children were involved in fierce competition.

The goal: to raise the most money for the Special Olympics.

The prize: airline tickets to Disney World!

Well, some school children were a bit more competitive than others. I was one of those.

Other than my mum, I didn’t have any family on the island. And while she could donate a few dollars, it wasn’t going to be enough to win that trip.

A holiday spent on a good cause

As I didn’t have any high-dollar donors at the top of my giving pyramid pegged for large donations, I hit the streets. Specially, the pavement outside our local supermarket.

I talked to every shopper coming out of the supermarket, told them briefly about the fundraiser and asked for their change from shopping. When they gave their donation—of whatever amount—I wrote down their name and the amount on my notepad and thanked them sincerely.

Some were more generous than others. Some didn’t even speak English (Barbados is a tourist isle), but I managed to convey the need—and I smiled a lot. A few were super generous. I got a lot of change, but two or three $100 bills.

Staying on track

I remember the feeling when a generous donor gave me more than I ever imagined. I think it made their day, too.

And it kept me going. Our Easter holidays were long. I spent 3 weeks asking everyone I could find on that island for donations.

When it was all totaled up, I raised $1,200. It was more money than I’d ever held at one time. I trotted back to school very pleased and turned in my big bag of change and bills. Surely that was more than anyone else had raised?

The rumor mill does me in

Somehow word got out about my large haul. And I wasn’t the only competitive girl at my school. Unfortunately for me, that girl did have a family who could write a large check to bring her up to—and beyond—my total. Because I had indeed collected more money than anyone else on the entire island.

I was dashed. It seemed so unfair—all that hard work and yet I still didn’t win, just because my family didn’t have as much money as hers. (Yes, the fact that the charity got all the money and it wasn’t supposed to be about me at all did seem to elude me at the time. It was really a win for them.)

Nuns comes through in a crisis

At the time, I went to a Catholic school: The Ursuline Convent. And while I wasn’t Catholic—and was even atheist at the time—there were some benefits to being taught by nuns. They saw to the heart of the situation and decided to make things as fair as they could.

Somehow, two grand prizes were procured. Airline tickets to Orlando or to New York. I was set on Disney, so I picked Orlando, which was just as well as the other girl wanted New York. We all won.

And that was that.

But it’s not the end of the story.

Coming to America

A few months later, my student visa and my mum’s visitor’s visa weren’t renewed. We had to leave the island. But where would we go? Back to England? To France?

My mum didn’t like the weather in England – it’s why she left in the first place. We considered the French Caribbean islands, Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Martin. But finding a job was challenging.

We decided on Florida. The United States of America: the land of the free and opportunity where the streets are paved with gold. Yes, people from other places really do believe the mystique of the U.S.

And how did we get here? With the airline tickets I worked so hard for. We flew to Orlando, Florida, and began to make our new lives.

Full circle

It took a few years until we actually made it to Disney World. And a few more before I started working for non-profit organizations. But when I did, it felt like coming home.

Fortunately, I no longer spend my vacations asking random strangers for donations. And while, as a communications professional, I don’t ask for money directly as a development officer does, I’m still asking. Annual appeals, newsletters, social media, cases for support – they all build a story and ask for financial support.

I wonder sometimes what life would have been like if we’d gone in a different direction: moved back to England, perhaps. But we had those airline tickets to Orlando. And an idea of a new life we could build for ourselves.

I hope that fundraiser helped change lives for the folks competing in the Special Olympics. It certainly changed mine.