The way this show works is that the producers decide everything: what sort of adventure the winning applicants will embark on, where they will go and they are told nothing until the crew appears at their door.

Each episode begins with “the ambush”. Part of the format requires that applicants be ready to leave immediately. They have only 10 minutes from the moment they open the door to the television crew to be on the road.

It was 7:12 a.m. when Stewart heard her door bell ring. She opened to door and a huge CBC camera was in her face. A crew was saying ‘we are taking you to Kenya. You have 10 minutes to get ready.’

“My parents had known about this since mid-summer and packed a bag for me, and they added to it while I showered. Within minutes I was on my way to the airport and on the plane they handed me a bag with a hat and coat and material on what I would be doing.”

Stewart was on her way to Kenya to the Masai Mara Reserve on the Tanzanian border. She would be working on a Free the Children project with co-challenger Sharon Babineau of Hamilton, Ont. The two would go to a school which had been built there with funds raised by Babineau’s late daughter Maddie, who lost a battle with bone cancer last May at the age of 17.

One of Maddie’s last wishes had been to have a well dug at the school so the children who attended would not have to spend all their time travelling miles for water. Maddie started raising money for the well from her hospital bed. She had been awarded a wish by the Children’s Wish Foundation but she did not live to collect it.

It was then her mother Sharon Babineau applied to the No Opportunity Wasted show to help fill Maddie’s wish posthumously. Babineau had also lost her husband to ALS in the late 1990's.

For Stewart, joining Babineau and making a difference to a group of children in Africa was everything she dreamed of.

“This was truly a personal growth mission for me,” she said. “I embarked on it in hope of inspiring others, and ended up inspiring myself beyond imagination.”

While in Africa, she lived in a cabin inside a compound with no phone and no electricity. She would write each night by firelight.

“There were monkeys on my deck, bush babies on my roof, and I would look one minute and shout, ‘Look, there goes a wildebeest’, or a zebra the next. It was beyond belief.”

The well was funded by Maddie’s fundraising efforts and by C.B.C.

Every day, Stewart and Babineau would go to the school and work on the well and take part in the daily activities of the people. She said it was unbelievable how quickly bonds were made and friendships forged.

The day Stewart left the Masai village a little girl she had become close to ran after their vehicle for more than a kilometre. The driver pulled over and the girl climbed in and onto Tara’s lap while they took her to her home. With tears falling, Tara watched the child fade in the distance as the van drove away.

“This has been a truly amazing journey for me and for my family, who knew about this for 28 days and never breathed a word. I feel great. I wanted to do this to inspire my students and show them that, yes, yes, you can do and achieve anything.”

Tara has booked Ise’s Stadium Bar in Charlottetown on Wednesday night and is inviting all of her friends and anyone else who is interested to come and watch it on the big screen at 8:30 p.m.

She is also encouraging people to donate to the Free the Children program.

The program will air on the Internet the day after it runs on CBC television.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard