May 24, 2024 12:15 pm
Regular Meeting - Classification Talk - Christopher Goff, Director of Membership, The Commerce ClubAdd Guest
Exchange Student Program (RES) and
living his year in Bavaria, Germany. There he stayed with three host families,
each taking four months as hosts.
Along the way Christopher built a
company focused on fashion called Christography which is based in Charlotte with
brands that are more than design and fashion. He's also created Team Topher a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to support teens when they
age out of foster care by providing financial support, professional attire,
educational lessons, and a network of opportunities in our local community.
Team Topher is backed and supported by Christography, a fashion production
company whose mission is to support local non-profit organizations while
promoting artistic expression, equality, and philanthropy with a focus on youth
programs.
Christopher was from 2009-16 himself a
foster care parent for three children, so this experience helped drive his
concerns for children aging out of foster care and not having support to carry
them forward. Christopher’s birth parents were never a couple, so his mother,
when Christopher was two, married eventually resulting in a blended family with
Christopher being the oldest of six children. He became part of an inter-racial
family. At school, he was the only white student in an all-Black elementary school.
He lived in a lower income household and knew he wanted more but also realized
he'd have to work extremely hard to achieve the better life he sought. Part of
the vision and motivation for his companies as well as his huge motivation to
be a diligent worker have driven him to go way beyond his very low-income
family’s living circumstances. Not surprisingly, his companies' purposes help
him gain his objective to build opportunities for young people to become
successes in the world of fashion business.
His year in Bavaria through the Rotary
Student Exchange (RSE) was transformational, including enabling him to perfect
his ability to speak German, which he still can do, 23 years later. (All
participants in the program must be fluent in the language of their host
nations.). He expressed tremendous thanks to his Rotary sponsor Mr. Al
Gibbons and his wife Marie Gibbons from the Manning, South Carolina
Rotary Club, who made it possible for Christopher to become a world citizen
easily capable of finding particularly good friends in many nations throughout
the world. When Christopher was heading back to the U.S. many of his Rotary
Student Exchange program fellow students went to the airport and slept there so
they could surprise him one last time as he was departing.
Rotary Club of Atlanta West End
Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center
800 Spring St NW
Atlanta, GA 30308