As The Royal Gazette launches the New Beginnings $1 Million Campaign, Mirrors volunteer Kerry Judd reflects on her own life-changing experience with the personal transformation programme.Our year-long fund raiser is dedicated to bringing back Mirrors’ community programme for 19- to 24-year-old men, using half-a-million dollars — and putting the other half-a-million dollars of donations into educational grants for the young graduates of initiatives such as Mirrors and Raleigh International.With her lengthy background in the marketing business, Ms Judd admitted it was ironic that she can trace her passion for the Mirrors programme to her response to a television advertisement.“It was the first TV ad they were putting together for the pilot scheme,” she recalled. “The irony was that I rarely responded to ads, because it’s part of what I did for a living.”As the Mirrors programme got ready to launch in 2007, it took Ms Judd just an hour in the group’s office to commit as a volunteer. At the time, she was General Manager at marketing agency Aardvark Communications.“While I was very happy there, the more work I did with Mirrors, the more it felt that my calling lay with supporting our young people. My decision to leave Aardvark and consult independently allows me the flexibility to put the time I need into the New Beginnings Education Trust.”The inception of New Beginnings, which is currently raising funds to provide further education and professional development opportunities for at-risk youth, can be traced to an exact date.Out running on April 5, 2008 in preparation for the May 24 race, Ms Judd said: “I was reflecting on conversations I’d had with Kimberley Jackson of Mirrors, about the challenges some of our young people were already having.”The Mirrors experience was awakening a desire in participants to work on their education.But trying to get a GED and finish a high school diploma can come at a steep cost.“When you look at the millions of dollars in scholarships available in Bermuda, which we’re blessed with, you see that the vast majority of students aren’t eligible,” she said.The criteria of top grades and a good record of community involvement tend to leave out “young people who have any less than an A/B average, who are challenged or who may have stepped away from their education”, she said.“And that isn’t bashing the other scholarship programmes. The Trust merely intends to fill a gap that currently exists, and that’s growing.”Help is out there for young people who need it. But Ms Judd felt compelled to address education.At the end of her ten-mile run, she had decided to create the New Beginnings Education Trust, to deliver grants for graduates of the youth coaching initiative.In November 2011, when Mirrors programme was forced to suspend its intensive residential course, Ms Judd went back to the drawing board to figure out how to raise money and save it.She explained: “Setting the goals of 12-month campaign is very much how Mirrors works with its participants around goals; there’s a specific goal that I believe is realistic, a timeline and the ability to measure progress.”At the time, like many others in the Mirrors community, Ms Judd was busy doggedly recruiting volunteers — and Mirrors was shifting its focus to younger students.Early this year, however, she got the gratifying surprise of a proposal from The Royal Gazette: to join forces in a fund-raising campaign — and so the New Beginnings $1 Million Campaign came about.The fund raiser has been organised in conjunction with Mirrors, and the Mirrors Alumni and Friends Association.Reflecting on her journey, Ms Judd said it boiled down to a simple matter of following through.“What had me choose to get involved in Mirrors back in 2007 was looking at myself and deciding to put my money where my mouth was,” she said.“I had been very vocal about Bermuda’s young people, and what I felt should be done to support them. When I saw that first ad for Mirrors, I realised it was time to put up or shut up.”She added: “It’s been four and a half years. Mirrors is a part of me. But beyond that, it’s about our young people. I love my country and I love my community, and I want young people coming up today to have the same experiences of community that I did growing up.”