A Coquitlam mom who was once a "den" mother to a group of vulnerable youth is closer to her dream of creating a safe place where children can learn and play.
Eronne Foster, CEO of Cackleberries Entertainment (cackleberries.com), is set to launch a virtual club for children three to seven years old where they can learn language, math and social skills by interacting with cartoon characters that look like cute eggs with arms.
"Kindness, empathy, honesty and loyalty, that's what we're really trying to teach," said Foster of the world of Cackleberries she started creating eight years ago.
Foster, 58, is a long-time Coquitlam resident who graduated from Centennial secondary school and raised her three children here.
This month, she is witnessing several milestones for the company she started in 2003 and operates with 33 employees out of an office in New Westminster. A commercial her company produced to promote Variety The Children's Charity Show of Hearts Telethon Feb. 11 and 12 will be airing on Global TV and Cackleberries will be launching "Variety House" in the virtual world of Oville with games, videos and books about special needs issues.
Foster said the partnership between Cackleberries and Variety is a natural because both have a vision of making the world a better place for children.
In addition to the partnership with Variety, Cackleberries is launching the paid membership component of its virtual world for children ages 3-7. Although children can play in the Cackleberries virtual world now for free, they will get access to more stories, as well as arts and crafts, music and early learning activities for a monthly fee.
There is an English as a Second language component for Cackleberries as well, which is being marketed to China, where 10,000 packages have been sold.
Oville is a kind world populated with cartoon characters and Foster used her own childhood fantasies as inspiration for the stories. "I'm taking all of my childhood games and putting them all online - but don't tell the young generation that," Foster jokes.
The single mom didn't start out as a cartoon storyteller, however. She was an accountant on Austin Avenue in Coquitlam for 30 years until she turned 50 and decided numbers weren't enough any more. At the time, she was "den" mother to a group of vulnerable kids from the neighbourhood who hung out at her house with her kids because they had nowhere else to go.
She was struck by their lack of innocence and blamed violent media, not just rough childhoods, for their risky lifestyle choices. "It just hit so hard, with the movies and TV shows they were watching, garbage in and garbage out, and with Nintendo (video games) they had already killed 50,000 people."
Except for two of her "foster" kids, all went on to productive lives. Her own children are grown now and busy in careers of their own, but the idea of creating a media company promoting a return to innocence for children stayed with her.
She connected with a children's book illustrator who provided the visual medium for her stories and friends and supporters backed her efforts to create an animated cartoon series or movie based on her ideas. "We had a great story," she recalled, but without the backing of a major film producer, wads of cash or a broadcaster, Cackleberries was unable to make the leap to the big or small screen.
She closed up shop and began casting about for other opportunities, meeting potential investors in China, the middle east and Africa where the president of Djibouti was considering hiring Foster to help the tiny African country establish a foothold in the animation industry.
The core crew stayed together and continued to develop other media, including games, and a Cackleberries Hero Inside CD, featuring prominent local musicians, such as Jim Byrnes.
When B.C-based Club Penguin, an online role playing game for tweens sold to The Walt Disney Company for $700 million, the model was set and Foster redoubled her efforts with Cackleberries, and clinched a deal with the producer of English as a Second Language materials, to produce a virtual world for non-English speakers.
Local investors pumped some cash into the endeavour, connections were made with educational agents in China, and the English Language program was launched last July. "It just exploded," Foster recalled. "We got on the phone, I called my original crew, they all quit their jobs and came back into an office in New Westminster."
Now with the Variety partnership in the works and an international base to promote Cackleberries all over the world, Foster is set to give her Cackleberries superstar status with the pre-school set.
But will she bring back innocence to childhood?
"A movie is still our dream."
