CALGARY, AB BoldStok Ltd, a social advancement Company is partnering with the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) and the MEOW Foundation for a photo contest with a one­of­a­kind prize: a $3 million dream home in Calgary, Alberta.

To enter this amateur photography contest participants upload a photo of their pet and pay a nominal $35 entry fee. Winners will not be chosen based on raffle draw, but instead through a panel of judges that will evaluate the submissions based on criteria including quality, emotions evoked and artistic merit. The winner will be the proud owner of a recently built home in a prestigious neighborhood in SW Calgary, valued at $3 million dollars, with three runners up cash prize awards of $50,000. For all the details and to enter please visit www.boldstok.com . By conducting this contest, BoldStok aims to use innovative concepts to promote responsible contest participation. Proceeds for this campaign will go to the charities AARCS and the MEOW Foundation.

Deanna Thompson, AARCS Executive Director says “We at AARCS are grateful to BoldStok for including animal welfare in this innovative project”. “This will benefit both the winners and the homeless animals in the community. This exciting and fun initiative will help our organization provide for the needs of the over 500 animals in our care, and have a major impact on the future of the organization by allowing us to help even more homeless, abandoned and abused animals”

Stephanie Sterling, President, and Chair of the MEOW Foundation says, “MEOW Foundation is honored to be partnering with BoldStok in their vision to create homeownership while showcasing the amazing bond between humans and their companion cats. All of us, friends and felines, are humbled to be selected as one of BoldStok’s charities of choice.”

ABOUT ALBERTA ANIMAL RESCUE CREW SOCIETY: AARCS is a registered nonprofit charity located in Calgary, Alberta facilitating over 3,000 animal adoptions each year and providing numerous community support programs across the province including Spay/Neuter Assistance, Pet Food Bank, Humane Education, Pet Enrichment and Animal Disaster Response. Our mission is Changing Lives Through Kindness.

ABOUT MEOW FOUNDATION: Founded in 2000, MEOW Foundation is a specialized cat focused registered charity and humane society with a no­kill mandate. We rescue and facilitate the adoption of stray and abandoned cats into new, loving permanent homes. We work hard to ensure that each MEOW cat is matched with the best possible home based on his or her personality, history, habits and individual needs.

ABOUT BoldStok Ltd: BoldStok was founded by a husband and wife who wish to creatively help charitable organizations and collectively ignite home ownership. We are a taxable social profit business, and we invite others to be a part of this visionary idea

A CHANCE TO DREAM- AND BE A PART OF A NEW IDEA

Close your eyes for a moment. Could you picture yourself living in a beautiful 4,400 square foot mansion, newly built in a prestigious inner-city neighborhood of Calgary? Imagine hosting your friends and family in an elegant dining room complete with a butler’s galley equipped with a state of art wine fridge and bar sink with instant boiling and instant ice-cold water to refresh hot and cold beverages.

Or what about luxuriating in a sumptuous en-suite spa, soaking in your $14,000 Bain Ultra tub while you sip wine and relax on a lazy afternoon?

Maybe it’s the idea of a huge games room and lovely fenced yard for the kids to run around that appeals to you.

Now here’s the rub- what if all this could be yours for the price of a $35 contest fee and a favorite photo of your beloved pet?

That’s right, all of this is going to be entirely possible if enough of us are willing to have a little fun by taking action to enter this unusual contest and bring this dream to life for some lucky winner!

Dreams. We all have them, and who among us can’t remember how good it feels to ponder “what if…” or “when I….” you can fill in the words yourself.

Indeed, most of the greatest accomplishments in the world came to us first in the form of someone’s dream.

It’s also a fact of life that dreams sometimes crash and burn along the way, and sometimes they take different paths. Perhaps a seemingly insurmountable obstacle appears on our path, forcing us to take another direction- one that can lead to transformation and renewal in ways we never would have imagined.

This is a story about transformation, it’s also an invitation to dream. Everyone who reads this story is invited to take a chance to create something new, to play a part in helping a fallen dream take flight on a new path. We can create new exciting possibilities, promote innovation and advancement in ways the original dreamers had never imagined.

Meet Teresa and Bill, a Calgary Alberta Couple who in early 2014 decided to pursue a long-held dream of designing and building their dream home in the historic, upscale Calgary neighborhood of Mount Royal.

The perfect location; a large corner lot on a tree lined street. A short stroll to all the local neighborhood amenities, and a short easy commute to the downtown core – an increasingly rare benefit in a city burgeoning with cars and traffic gridlock.

Countless hours went into planning, drafting, designing and giving life to the house, first on paper and then through sweat equity, and perseverance as the house finally emerged over a four-year period to take a place of prominence on the street.

Not a detail was overlooked as Teresa and Bill dove into the project, deeply passionate about their work, and fully committed as they plowed all of their financial resources into the construction.

All the while, the home was being constructed against an increasingly dark and ominous backdrop in the Province of Alberta. The natural resource industry, a critical engine of economic growth in Alberta and Canada was grinding inexorably to a devastating and prolonged halt.

The real estate market sputtered and even now in 2019 continues to languish. Home prices in the high-end market have fallen dramatically and plans to sell other real estates to help pay for the dream home have not been realized.

For Teresa and Bill, the ink on the constructions bills of $2.9 million had barely dried as the City of Calgary issued their property value assessment of $1.6 million.

The stage had been set for a financially devastating crisis. With no possible sale at cost recovery levels and poor prospects for waiting out the market, this couple is struggling with a mountain of debt.

“We’ve been through a lot since this project started. We had setbacks from the very beginning, but we think our relationship has grown stronger as a result”. Teresa explained as we walked through the home on a lovely Sunday afternoon recently.

“We had been living together for years and as a result of this experience, we decided to reinforce our commitment to each other by getting married, right here”, as she pointed to the base of a grand staircase leading to the second level.

“We had poured everything into this house including our love and dedication to one another”.

The idea for this contest was born from the need to think outside the box.

Home ownership is a dream that is getting more difficult for many to achieve, and for this couple, they felt the need to make their experience one that could result in helping others to advance their life goals in a positive stress- free way.

If there are a minimum of 100,000 to a maximum of 105,000 people who are willing to join this contest by submitting a great photo of their pet along with the $35 entry fee, then this dream house will be awarded to one lucky winner. There will also be 3 runner up prizes of $50,000 awarded. Wow!

Bill and Teresa will see their dream home take on a new life with new residents. The home will be acquired free and clear by the winner, Bill and Teresa will be relieved of a tremendous burden, and further to this, up to three Canadian charities will be selected to share a gift of $100,000. Seed money to set more dreams into flight. 

Who knows? Perhaps this contest will lead to a new pathway to building community - a different take on crowdfunding that can help others realize their homeownership goals.

The contest opens in April 2019, and you can find all the information, details and house photos here.

Everyone is eligible to join in the fun, even if you can’t afford the $35 entry fee. Join anyway. Maybe that cute little kitten photo you’ve been sharing on Facebook will make you the proud owner of this fabulous home, and your kitten famous!

Remember though, that in order for the contest to succeed there needs to be 100,000 paying entrants. Consider this your participation in a new social experiment that might take hold for additional contests in the future.

Enter as often as you like and tell your friends!

Rita  McGillivray
March 23, 2019
Calgary AB