"Miss You, Grandma" - The Story of Cynthia Stark

Cynthia first read about the Points of Contact program on an online message board for one of the courses that she was taking at the Simon Fraser University. One of her classmates posted a message saying that there is an organization who can offer airplane tickets to people who require financial support to visit their family. She thought it was a great program but did not think too much about it.

Then one day, she got news from Sudbury, Ontario that her 83 years old grandmother was becoming very ill. Cynthia's grandmother has had a stroke some time ago. But with her pacemaker being infected, her body could not function properly and her health was getting steadily weaker each day. Though the doctor could not tell the family how many more months she could live, it would not be that much longer. Cynthia grew very worried. She really missed her grandmother and wanted to see her, even for one last time.

Living with her 8 years old son, Kieran, in Vancouver, BC, the last time Cynthia saw her parents and grandmother in Ontario was 6 years ago. Being a single mom with disability, finance was always tight so finding extra money for airplane tickets imposed great challenges to her. Cynthia checked her mileage points collected over years. To her dismay, she did not have enough points for two round-trip tickets. Just when her hope began to dim, she recalled the message she read about the Points of Contact program on the message board. She quickly called up her classmate to find out more about this program.

Cynthia was so thrilled when she heard that her application was approved. She was very excited that she could see her grandmother again and more importantly, Kieran could spend time with his great-grandmother. "Kieran was only 2 when he first met his great-grandmother," Cynthia said "he was too young to remember anything about her."

During their visit in Sudbury, the family was so glad to reunite and spend some quality time together. As they revisited the good old memories, new ones were formed. Cynthia was pleased to be with her family again and Kieran enjoyed his time with his great-grandmother.

"We are so grateful to you for giving us the opportunity to see my sick grandmother. It was so very good to see her after all these years." Cynthia wrote in her email after her trip, "Her health is still very poor, but she is still holding on. It was a very good trip, and we are so thankful."