In September 2015, Alastair Bisset, an architectural technician from Scotland, was visiting friends in BC. And thanks to one of those friends being a Wellspring staff member, he was convinced to sign up to participate in Wellspring’s Lake2Lake bike ride.  With very little time to train (and with the added challenge of Scottish weather that made training much less appealing!), Alastair boldly rode 115km on the first day of the ride, and in the process raised $1,190 for Wellspring!

During the course of the Lake2Lake weekend, Alastair learned more about Wellspring’s work, and became committed to playing his part in seeing students in Rwanda receive a quality values-based education. So when he began to plan his 60th birthday celebrations, which took place in July 2016, he decided to take this opportunity to make a difference.

In typically Scottish fashion, Alastair organized a ceilidh for his birthday, which is basically a big fun party with lots of traditional Scottish dancing!  Instead of gifts, he asked all guests to make a monetary contribution, which would be split between two organizations that he cares about – one of which was Wellspring. People came to his celebration with birthday cards and cheques and cash, and at the end of the evening Alastair was happy to report that over $1,000 had been raised, of which $500 would be donated to Wellspring.

We are so grateful to Alastair for taking this simple but incredibly generous step, by turning his birthday into an opportunity to impact others. And you can do the same!