Milestones Project — Canadian Premiere!

Through Lead­er­ship Cal­gary I’ve had the oppor­tu­nity to meet a remark­able lady by the name of Gena Rot­stein.  Her com­pany, Dex­ter­ity Con­sult­ing is Canada’s first and only Phil­an­thropic Bro­ker­age Firm™ and spe­cial­izes in build­ing and main­tain­ing diver­si­fied phil­an­thropic invest­ment port­fo­lios for clients that want to max­i­mize the impact of their char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions to the community.

Dexterity’s unique approach to busi­ness is reflected even by it’s office location–the back of Gallery 213, an art gallery cre­ated in part to sup­port Cana­dian artists by offer­ing up commission-free wall space. And here, here is where the post begins!

On Sep­tem­ber 3, 2009, Dex­ter­ity Con­sult­ing along with a num­ber of spon­sors pre­sented the first Cana­dian taste of the Mile­stones Project, a 35,000+ image col­lec­tion of moments depict­ing a series of firsts for chil­dren around the world. The first tooth, first best friend, first day of school, and first hair­cut are shared by peo­ple the world ’round regard­less of race, color, reli­gion or loca­tion.  The aim of the pro­gram (if I may be so bold as to sum­ma­rize) is to show how sim­i­lar we all are when you strip away the mean­ing­less hatred and igno­rance that seg­re­gates us from others.

Pho­tog­ra­phers Richard and Michele Steckel, the real heart of the Mile­stones Project were on hand to speak about their work and what it meant.  Their gra­cious­ness and com­mit­ment to the bet­ter­ment of the world is to be com­mended, and has been rec­og­nized by such orga­ni­za­tions as the United Nations among oth­ers.. They were a true inspi­ra­tion to speak with!

The open­ing night was by all accounts a great suc­cess with a packed house for most of the night.  We were joined by sev­eral spe­cial guests and a crowd of enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers for the open­ing com­ments.  The show will con­tinue until Octo­ber 31, 2009 and is located in Gallery 213 at Art Cen­tral in down­town Calgary..

I man­aged to catch a few pho­tos using avail­able light. With the gallery as packed as it was, I felt it would be a bit igno­rant to use a flash and blind the whole audi­ence reg­u­larly but in hind­sight, the qual­ity of the pho­tos would have been greatly advanced by a lit­tle off-camera flash.