Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

-Benjamin Franklin

The Person of the Month award is dedicated to those who continue to strive for excellence and hard work toward SDC’s mission statement, to empower youth with disabilities. Breanne Smith is one of Social Diversity for Children Foundation’s program instructors for the art and music programs and our Person of the Month for March. Through Breanne’s constant positivity and patience, she has brought inspiration and joy to many children throughout the pandemic. 

Breanne was born in Burnaby, British Columbia and attended school in Port Coquitlam. Upon graduating Secondary School, Breanne began studying education at SFU to pursue her passion of teaching. Currently, Breanne teaches kindergarten in the New Westminster school district, while doing program instruction on the side. She has always had a strong passion for music, whether through instruments such as the piano and guitar to singing. Breanne’s biggest hope for the world is for all children and youth to express themselves freely and develop a lifelong learning mindset. Outside of Breanne’s career, you can find her hiking local trails and cooking delicious meals. 

For the past two years, Breanne has been an active member of the SDC community, running our programs such as Building Bridges with Music and Education through Creativity. In her first encounter with SDC, Breanne found that our mission statement perfectly aligned with her own mission as an educator, which prompted her to reach out. She began teaching out programs in May of 2020 - the peak of the pandemic. Despite the difficulties of virtual teaching, she believes it was all worth it in the end. Soon after Breanne was finally able to meet her students outside of a screen during her outdoor summer classes! 

During the transition from in-person teaching to online one, Breanne had the opportunity to teach close to 100 students through music and art. By doing so, she was able to grow connections with her connections with them, as many returned to take class with her again. She truly enjoyed how she could see them grow by becoming more confident in freely expressing themselves. SDC appreciates her great contribution through online and outdoor classes which were challenging, but meaningful because we were able to help more students than ever.

So far, Breanne feels proud about her efforts to foster an engaging and safe learning environment for students to think creatively and freely. In addition, thanks to her opportunity at SDC, she has learned how to better adapt to unknown situations. Through these experiences, spontaneity proved to match the interests of students and encourage participation. By doing so, they can have the best opportunity to help the students. Looking towards a bright future, we are extremely excited for Breanne’s continued growth and positive contributions in her journey with SDC.