(Lending Cupboard)

By Sheldon Spackman

Arlene Dickinson

Lending Cupboard’s Winter Luncheon to feature Dragon’s Den star

Jan 13, 2020 | 12:25 PM

A best-selling author, accomplished public speaker, and venture capitalist from the TV show Dragon’s Den will be the guest speaker at the Lending Cupboard’s primary fundraiser this year.

Arlene Dickinson has been announced as the featured guest for the Second Annual Winter Luncheon, to be held Jan. 27 at the Cambridge Red Deer Hotel and Conference Centre. Tickets can be purchased at tickets.blackknightinn.ca

Dawna Morey, executive director for the Lending Cupboard, says they’re excited for Dickinson’s arrival.

“I think the timing is right too, cause Arlene really speaks about entrepreneurship, about sustaining through the ups and downs and reinventing ourselves,” says Morey. “And of course as a non-profit, as a charity, we have to do a lot of that ourselves as well, so a lot of the same principles are applied. We think that for the business community and for small businesses or people that are even doing business out of their home, her message is going to be great.”

As an organization that loans out medical equipment to people of all ages across central Alberta, Morey says the fundraiser is an important one.

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“To sustain that, we really rely on donations and fundraising to be able to do that because there’s no cost to the client,” she explains. “We’re just hoping that it’s a sell-out crowd, and if that’s it, it will be a successful event. Given that we don’t charge residents any cost for the equipment that they use, it helps us to maintain that equipment in good order.”

Dickinson, who also has a new book out, hopes to explain to the audience how to keep yourself going through all the anxiety, stress, and pressures of life.

“And a little bit about my story and how I got where I am,” she tells the BIG Breakfast Show. “I’ll share some of those challenges I experienced along the way and hopefully make enough sense that I can help other people not make the same mistakes I made, because I made a lot of them. And a little bit about how we can master our lives and reinvent ourselves to whatever we would like to be.”

Dickinson says ‘community’ is a critical part of our well-being.

“When you think about the idea of Mr. Rogers and the neighbourhood and what’s going on around us, we sometimes get blind to the need of the people right next door to us or in the same area as us,” she explains. “I think there’s power in numbers, there’s strength in helping each other. There’s a sense of well-being that comes with knowing you belong in a community – these things all matter.”

Dickinson says the Lending Cupboard’s care for the community is what stood out for her to be this year’s guest speaker at the Winter Luncheon.

“They really are doing things that I think make a significant difference,” she exclaims. “I mean the fact that they’re lending medical equipment, they’re doing the things that they need to do to make sure that people have what they need in order to be healthy and well and survive. I think what they’re doing is pretty amazing and pretty rare.”

(With file from BIG 105 radio interview)