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“Every Child Deserves a Good Day — Even When the World Says Otherwise .” - Vanessa, Founder of The Good Days Fund Inc.

Introduction:

I know what it feels like to be a child waiting for a good day that never comes.

Growing up, home was not the safe place it is supposed to be. It was unpredictable. It was loud in the worst ways and silent in the worst ways. It was a place where I learned, far too young, that some children have to grow up before they are ready — carrying weight that no small set of shoulders should ever have to bear. I didn't have the luxury of just being a kid. And for a long time, I didn't know that was something I was even allowed to want.

But I never stopped wanting it.

That wanting — that ache for something better — became the foundation of everything I do today.

The Good Days Fund Inc. was not born in a boardroom or a business plan. It was born in the quiet, honest corners of my own story. It was born from the little girl I once was, who needed someone to show up and say: you matter, you are seen, and today is going to be a good day.

No one said that to me often enough. So I decided to spend my life saying it to as many children as I possibly could.

That is how I found myself standing in the small village of Media Sombra, Colombia, watching a six-year-old girl take her very first steps into the ocean.

She stopped. She looked down at her feet disappearing into the sand as the water rushed over them. And then she looked up with the kind of expression that makes you forget every hard thing you have ever been through — pure, unfiltered, electric wonder.

She had never seen the ocean before. She had never owned a pair of new shoes before. And that morning, she had put on her very first pair, walked to the edge of the world, and felt it wash over her.

I cried. I am not ashamed to admit it.

Because in that moment, I saw myself. I saw every child who has ever needed a good day and didn't know if one was coming. And I saw what is possible when ordinary people decide to show up with extraordinary generosity.

This blog is my way of bringing you into those moments.

The villages. The children. The meals shared and the shoes unboxed and the laughter that echoes across communities that the world too often forgets. The stories that remind us why this work matters — and why you matter to it.

I started The Good Days Fund because I believe that no child's future should be written by their hardest circumstances. Not the child in rural Colombia living in extreme poverty. Not the child in an overcrowded city with nothing to eat. And not the little girl I once was, trying to find safety in an unsafe home.

Every single one of us deserved a good day. And every single one of the children we serve deserves one too.

So welcome to this space. Pull up a chair. Read these stories with an open heart.

And if something moves you — if you find yourself thinking, I want to be part of this — then you already are. Because that feeling? That is where change begins.

One child. One community. One good day at a time.

With love and purpose, Vanessa Founder, The Good Days Fund Inc.

Want to help us create more good days? Visit [thegooddaysfund.org] to learn how your support changes lives in rural Colombia.