To Vivo, on Your 21st Birthday

Our years together have taught me a lot. As I sit here now reflecting, we’ve grown up together. You weren’t quite two when we met, I was bright-eyed and nineteen. I had also locked myself out of my car - for the millionth time but who is counting? While I waited for my dad to bring me a spare key I decided to cross the street from Superstore and drop off a resume at the building I could see, nestled into the side of the hill.

Over the years we matured together, both changing and challenging and finding our place in this world. We’ve worn a few different hats in our time together but the threads that stitch us together have held. We took breaks, we raised kids, we made mistakes, we opened our hearts and closed our doors. We became so much more than we ever imagined.

Long before I had babies I learned about sedentary lifestyles and the benefits of incidental movement. Dr. Mark Tremblay gave our team a talk that would change the trajectory of my own life and my future parenting. I remember sitting in the Meeting Room watching slide after slide of data and listening to the compelling story woven through that data. I understood that a healthy lifestyle isn't only working out or going for a run but building a life that requires unexpected movement often, attention to all aspects of our health - emotional, spiritual, social - and that lifestyle may seem to many, unconventional.

We learned about the value of play - how children learn through play and that we have created a world led by fear and screens that has stolen play from childhood. We worked to infuse play back into daily life and I took note of how I would do this for my own children as I prepared to have them. We took a concept that the world wanted to label as trivial and unimportant and we worked to remind everyone of the critical value of play.

Vivo, you are far more than a physical space. As the years passed the energy extended far beyond the walls of the facility. The connection to who I am and who I want to be is woven together with the threads of who you are and who you could be. I left to find myself and to build the life I knew was aligned with all of the learnings we had gathered from our years together.

When I began my time with Vivo - then Cardel Place - I didn't know where it would lead. As our years together expanded and intertwined I saw myself as a community leader that would spearhead change for better health. I wanted to tell everyone the good news and the simple ways that we could all lead healthier lives. I wanted to fight big tech and screens, to give children back their childhoods filled with dirty hands and scraped knees. We combined our voices and my heart burned with a passion to change the world.

At some point, I realized that to truly do this for myself and for my own children - in a way that felt genuine and in alignment with my beliefs - I would need to change my lifestyle. With a heavy yet sure heart I left my role to fully invest in myself and in my children to ensure they had the childhood that I so fiercely believed they deserved. I realized that to live my healthiest life and be the light that encourages healthy living I didn’t need to do that from Vivo - I could do that all on my own.

Ultimately, I have learned that to truly life my best life and “Vivo my life” I have to do the big work at home. I truly believe this is the outcome in our work as a cause - to raise healthier generations - to empower everyone to vivo their life. When we empower people to become the champions of their health everything changes. 

I believe this is how we raise healthier generations. I believe in the space we have and hold but I believe that our biggest, best, most effective work comes when the desire for healthier generations goes home and becomes infused into the homes and lives of those Vivo has touched. It's not only a place - it is an energy. It deserves to be cultivated and cared for at the source so that it can radiate out. Vivo becomes a part of you, that teal lifeline braids itself into the souls of those it has influenced and the threads extend outward - stretching through communities, across the city, the country, and even the globe.

Vivo's cause is selfless. Unlike many organizations who strive to hold on tight to anyone who is deeply connected to the cause, Vivo thrives and can only grow by releasing us. It's the hardest part and it's simultaneously the strongest part. Like a mother raises her children and watches them walk bravely out into the world, Vivo's work to raise healthier generations means infusing the community with that nourishing and recognizable teal life-water and then allowing them to flow where they need to go. The task of raising healthier generations means setting people back out into the world to continue on the quest.

The biggest work is accomplished when it is not confined. Connecting hearts and minds to living healthy lives - that’s big and it can’t be contained within our walls. Movements spread in this way - ebbing and flowing out and up, across and over, carried in the hearts of those who have chosen to live for healthier generations.

Vivo. To live. The place that I have lived for the better part of my adult life. The place that raised me, put faith and trust in me - and vice versa - helped me raise my boys, and build my lifestyle. I no longer believe that I need to travel the world or climb the corporate ladder to make an impact or be impacted. I know that my biggest work is at home, raising the next, healthier, generation. It's more than a place. It's a living, breathing energy - a way of life. I know I am not the only one. The energy, the life, the love that fills my soul is tinted teal.

And while the heart beats at the centre, the energy flows out far beyond.  

Love From, Maria