SELLING HOPE-OPOTAMUSES

Some people are born entrepreneurs. Some are not. I am not, was not, never have been—surprising in a way, considering how much I love putting new ideas in my work.

These days I am responding to mail from large organizations who want to sell the hope-opotamus to raise money for their operations. When I say large, I mean multimillion-dollar budgets, organizations that pay hundreds of doctors and many other well-aid people. They run dozens of buildings. One kind-hearted fund development officer, on hearing from me that she definitely did not have my permission to market hope-opotamuses for her cause, wrote back that, although she would not sell them without my permission, others with inferior ethical standards would certainly sell them and I had better seek legal protection before it is too late.

Oh the lowly hope-opotamus. Whatever shall we do about it now that it has become famous? It came into existence as an evocative object, a souvenir of hope work, a tangible reminder of hope conversations past. Evocative objects, as described by Sherry Turkle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carry both ideas and passions. They anchor memories.

It has been eight years since the first hope-opotamus arrived at the Hope Foundation of Alberta. It was brought in by Gary, a man who had received hope-focussed counselling and participated in a humour class for people with depression. One day during the humour class I casually said the word hope-opotamus, and the next day he dropped by with a little purple hippo. He said it was a hope-opotamus. He said it would help me remember all the hope I had given him. Who was I to argue?

Soon other people were bringing in hippos of various colours and sizes, converting them to hope-opotamuses with their gratitude and their love. Sometimes, when the mood felt just right, we would select a hope-opotamus from the herd and give it to somebody who needed hope. Sometimes a person would ask for a hope-opotamus and one would be given. Hope-opotamuses were so special to me that I gave one—the first one ever given to me--to my mother when she was dying. We had so much fun with it that I turned our experience into a story. Then, eight years after the first hope-opotamus came to the Hope Foundation, I told that story to Shelagh Rogers on CBC Sounds Like Canada. Now that it is famous, entrepreneurs of the world are telling me I have only myself to blame.

I don’t suppose I would have allowed the hope-opotamus to appear on radio if I had imagined that people would want to sell it. Hope-opotamuses often appear on stage with me, and this has never happened. When hope-opotamuses make live appearances, people show them great respect. Occasionally a very sad audience member will carry one home. And if you are an entrepreneur, you may simply not be able to understand why a hope-opotamus would simply be a hippo if you bought a thousand and sold them in your store. Hope-opotamuses carry personal meanings and personal memories. People who take them usually want to remember something we said about hope. Somehow they just don’t belong on the shelves among the mugs showing pictures of Canadian National Parks and the saltshakers from coastal cities.