The Caring Force Blog Tenth Annual Broadcast Your Love Winner

| Caroline O'Neill

Ten years of Broadcast Your Love of Human Services! We can't believe it! This contest, whether it was photos or visual media, in-person or virtual, has brought together human services workers for a decade. Thank you all for bringing more attention to the sector and raising awareness for the sector's importance by broadcasting your love!

Congratulations to Gándara Center on being the Tenth Annual Broadcast Your Love for Human Services visual media contest winners!

Congratulations to Jade Rivera-McFarlin, who submitted the winning entry from Gándara Center! This was a close race, with hundreds of votes cast on social media to narrow the field to four finalists. Then, last week at the Providers’ Council’s 46th Annual Convention & Expo: Essential Then, Now and Always, we asked convention attendees to pick their favorite. Turning Point took fourth place, Advocates won third place, Vinfen received second place, and Gándara Center took home the gold!

We interviewed Jade, who is the Vice President of Development and Community Relations at Gándara Center, and asked her the following questions:

Why do you work in human services?

I work in Human Services because I’m from a family where everyone works in the field.  I was raised to believe that the world is a better place when you help others.  I grew up watching my mother, father and grandmother volunteer at neighborhood events and run community meetings and knew that I wanted to do the same one day.  Even though I took a different path doing marketing, communications and being a news reporter.  I eventually made my way to an agency where I could use my skills to help my community.

What is your favorite professional memory?

My favorite professional memory is when I coordinated an earthquake relief fundraiser to help the victims of the 2020 Puerto Rico earthquake.   Me and my team raised nearly $5000 and collected over 2 tons of goods that we personally hand delivered to the victims in the earthquake zone.  It was an honor to help people in need and represent the Gándara Center and the great people of Massachusetts who made donations.

What was your vision for the Broadcast Your Love visual media contest?

I wanted to find a creative way to use QT the bear and show the passion that our direct care staff have for helping those we serve.  That led to me finding an app that I could use to animate him.  After that, I thought it would be great to have him be the one interviewing our staff and the rest is history.

Thank you to all those who submitted, viewed, and voted in our Annual Broadcast Your Love of Human Services Contest. You can view the submissions by visiting our FacebookInstagram and Twitter pages and with the hashtag #BroadcastYourLove.

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