By Victoria Stone-Meadows
A woman from Hampton Park has been rewarded for her hard work and dedication in changing people’s lives – one greeting card at a time.
Kay Vrieze has been marketing and selling send-out cards for about five years. In that time her business has grown, and so have the opportunities she has afforded to young people in the City of Casey.
Ms Vrieze set up the Paul Vrieze Memorial Scholarship to help young disadvantaged people in Casey complete their schooling in honour of her son, who died in a tragic car accident. She uses the profits from her business to fund the scholarship.
“When our son was killed, as a family, it was devastating. He was a lovely part of our world and the same to many people,” she said.
“Paul was the kind of guy who would give away his last dollar, so we thought let’s not waste his generosity and see what we can do to make a difference.”
It was then that Ms Vrieze partnered with the Narre Warren Community Learning Centre to offer a scholarship that pays all the fees for young people to finish their education.
Ms Vrieze was recently awarded an MLM Superstar award by business network group Motivating Mum for her work in her business and scholarship.
She said she wasn’t expecting to win the award, after only having been a member of the group for about three months.
“Someone nominated me for it and to be honest I didn’t know much about it,” she said.
“I found it was a national award when I was sitting next to a woman from Queensland and there were people from all over the country there.”
“When they announced my name as the winner, I nearly fell over.”
Now that Ms Vrieze has retired from her main job, she said she was looking forward to focusing more on growing her business and expanding the scholarship trust to help more young people.
“We have two young people who have taken up the scholarship but we are very keen to get more on board.”
To find out more about the helping Ms Vrieze’s vision, visit www.sendoutcards.com/60236 or call 0409 823 509.
