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Sometimes Inspiration Hits When You Need It Most

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Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend my third We Day event. I went into this We Day thinking that I had seen all there is to see when it came to the Free The Children event, and I left with something I hadn’t realized I needed. Personal inspiration.

Life has been busy lately. With family, a full time job, part time job and a blog to look after, I had started to feel overwhelmed on an almost daily basis. In essence, my time had become small units of monetary value and I was having trouble seeing it any other way. Family was still number 1, always, but every other aspect of my life was suffering and I was too busy to notice it.

Enter, We Day. This was by far the largest We Day I had been too, almost quadrupling last year’s Ottawa attendance. As I sat and listened to speaker after speaker share their stories as the 16,000 children in attendance screamed and flashed their strobe-like wristbands, I was transported back to the place I was in a year ago. That place was one of kindness and love, where the prevailing thought on my mind was making sure I left the world a better place than I entered it.

I got to hang out with my inspiring friend and We Day speaker, Hannah Alper. I met another amazing youth in Vishal Vijay and had the chance to speak to two amazing local girls from Huntley Centennial Public School, named Isabelle Poulin and Chelsea Wilken, who were all doing their part to create a positive change in our day to day lives. Listening to these children speak and share why kindness was important to them, reminded me of what was important to me.

When I got home that day, I immediately re-launched Kindness Canada, as it had been on the back burner, and started re-organizing my life. I realized that I still have time to do all the work that I was doing, but I plan on doing it smarter so that I have more time to focus on the things that are most important to me. Those things are my family, my health and my commitment to making the world a better place, one smile at a time. I guess this sounds cheesy but it’s how I feel, so I’m not sure how else to word it.

The We Day movement is something that I knew nothing about a year ago, and yet I have no idea where I would be without it. Everyone from the founders to the PR team and speakers are all amazing people and it just reinforces the benefit of building a strong community. I realize that the event was created to inspire children to change the world, but it has changed my world, multiple times over. Please do yourself a favour and check out the Free The Children website and the videos within it. They will change you in a very good way. Also, keep an eye out for Hannah and Spencer West as they embark on the We Create Change Tour, which started this week.

Here are some shots from the National We Day event I just attended. It’s not the same as being there but it’s still pretty cool!

We Day Speakers, Isabelle Poulin & Chelsea Wilken

We Day Speakers, Isabelle Poulin & Chelsea Wilken

Simple Plan frontman, Pierre Bouvier, rocks the We Day stage

Simple Plan frontman, Pierre Bouvier, rocks the We Day stage

 

Hannah Alper and Vishal Vijay give their powerful presentations.

Hannah Alper and Vishal Vijay give their powerful presentations.

Power In Numbers

Power In Numbers

 

 

 

We Day ~ Montreal Recap

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Last week, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend my second WeDay, this time in the amazing city of Montreal. Some might call this greedy but it was a special chance for me to see my friend, Hannah Alper, performing live on stage as WeDay’s newest speaker. Spoiler Alert: She totally crushed it!

The Montreal event was different from the Ottawa experience in that it only had about 2,000 students, which made for a very intimate setting. The crowd was still deafening at times, as they heard from amazing speakers like Martin Luther King III, Chris Tse & the Kielburger brothers, as well as performances by Luca “LazyLegz” Patuelli and Sam Roberts. As you would expect from an event like WeDay, the positive energy flowing around the room was very high and the emotions were even higher.

My Highlights

There were a number of highlights from my most recent WeDay experience and I’ve decided to lay them out in point form to the best of my ability.

1. Martin Luther King III

It’s not every day that you get to listen someone as powerful as Martin Luther King III live on stage and I am grateful for the opportunity. While his message was tailored to the children in attendance, I can assure you that it was certainly not lost on me when he urged them to find their calling in life. It’s something that I am still searching for but feel like I am getting closer every day.

2. Chris Tse

I’m not going to lie, going into this day, I had no idea who Chris Tse was. I was invited a couple days before the event and didn’t have a lot of time to read up on all the speakers. It turns out that it was probably a good thing because Chris blew me away with his wit and in the way that he poetically threw out his words as if he were writing a book right in front of us. In describing his upbringing, I loved when he talked about how his parents had set up “Math Mondays”, “World History Wednesdays”, and his least favourite, “Non-Fiction Fridays”. He was incredible and is someone I will be following from now on.

3. Spencer West

This says it all.

4. The Alper’s. All of them…

You know the saying, “It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know”? That seems infinitely appropriate here, because without Eric, Candace and Hannah Alper, I would not have been able to experience something as amazing as WeDay. From the initial invitation, to having the opportunity to sneak backstage to meet the likes of Marc & Craig Kielburger, Spencer West, Martin Luther King III and Sam Roberts, I am forever indebted to this family. Getting to see Hannah calmly speak in front of all of those kids, gives me further inspiration and nerves to pursue my goals of inspiring through public speaking. And, she was absolutely amazing as she shared Malala’s story, up on the stage. So, thank you Alper’s! You have inspired me in more ways than one and I plan on using that insporation for good.

5. Meeting Molly Burke!

This was the big highlight of the day for me. Thanks again to Candace Alper, I had the special opportunity to meet and hang out backstage with Molly Burke and her guide dog, Gypsy. I was first introduced to Molly and her story at WeDay in Ottawa earlier this year. Her story of bullying is one of the most powerful I have ever heard on the subject and I wanted to meet her so I could let her know that her message reaches more than just the children she speaks to. As expected, she was very cool to hang out with and admitted that she is very superstitious, just as I am. Her new presentation was just as powerful as the one from Ottawa and the world is definitely a better place for having her in it.

If you have school aged children, I highly encourage you to start by showing them the videos on the Free The Children website and encouraging them to get involved in their school or community. The long term effects of this action will benefit their future multiple times over.

We 365 App

Free The Children also unveiled the very cool, We 365 phone app, which is going to revolutionize the way we give back. It’s an app that tracks all the good you do and awards points for each task you complete and hour your volunteer. It has challenges, allows you to create groups and even has prizes. This video explains it better than I can, and for every sign up on We365, Free The Children will immunize a child overseas.

Martin Luther King IIIMolly Burke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hannah AlperSam Roberts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spencer West

Children Who Inspire ~ Interview With 10 Year Old Tyler

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I recently had the privilege of interviewing a young Ottawa boy by the name of Tyler, regarding his recent involvement in Free The Children & RBC’s, We Create Change program. One of Canada’s largest penny drives and coinciding with the penny going out of circulation, the We Create Change campaign is challenging Canadians to donate their pennies to an important cause: water.

Tyler is one of the many amazing children across Canada who has pledged to make a difference. He convinced a group of 10 of his hockey buddies to band together to begin their first Free The Children campaign. I asked Tyler (and his Mom) a few questions about his campaign and here is what he had to say:

CD: Why did you choose to start your own Free The Children campaign?

Tyler: Since I was little, I always liked doing charity work so it was kind of natural for me to want to be a part of this. I thought it would be fun to do with my friends and in our first meeting I showed them the child labour video and they wanted to be a part of it.

CD: How much money did you guys raise and what were some of the methods you used to raise money?

Tyler: We raised $1,028. We had an Iced Tea stand, we set up, as a group, at the Independent Grocer, we collected door to door and we used email to share our message.

CD: Do you know how the money you raised translated into providing clean water?

Tyler: Our money will provide clean water for 41 people, for life.

CD: (Question for Tyler’s Mom) You guys are obviously doing something right with your kids, so can you give some advice to other parents who want to help get their children involved in wanting to give back?

Tyler’s Mom: It’s something we’ve been doing since they were little and I’ve been looking for ways to get more involved. I saw Marc Kielburger speak at the Ottawa Catholic School Board and realized it was just about seeing what there is out there. We’ve gone to the retirement home and the kids helped out with craft time. The most important thing is to find whatever gets you excited and follow that. I also got a lot of ideas and inspiration from the videos on the Free The Children website and also from Marc and Craig Kielburger’s book, “The World Needs Your Kid”.

CD: Tyler, I want to ask you the same question but as it relates to kids. What advice can you give to kids who are nervous about starting their own campaign?

Tyler: Be confident. Try to set our clear goals. Get friends who want to help and put in as much time as you can in to it.

CD: What kind of goals and dreams do you have?

Tyler: I had a dream last week that I was in Africa, showing kids their new homes and that is something that I would really love to do when I’m older, or right now, haha.

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I want to thank Tyler and his family for giving me the time to talk to them about his amazing work, and I want to commend him on being such an inspiration for not just our youth, but to all of us. It was an absolute honour to talk with him and you can look forward to more amazing stories about youth who are making a difference in the world, as I continue this feature in the weeks and months to come. Before I go, here are a few more stats about the We Create Change campaign.

To mark the end of the school year, Free The Children and RBC celebrated the incredible fundraising effort of hundreds of thousands of youth and their schools through the “We Create Change“ penny drive, by announcing the final total, which outweighs approximately 64 elephants and more than five empty Boeing 747’s. Young people across the country raised 140 million pennies ($1.4 million), providing 56,000 people with clean water for life. All pennies collected were in support of Free The Children’s year-long Water Initiative to provide a permanent source of clean water to people in developing countries.

We Create Change

Podcast ~ Discussing The NHL Playoffs, We Day & Letting Children Explore

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CJAD800

I am always excited to join CJAD’s Ric & Suzanne for their “Family Matters” segment and this week we started out by discussing how I am going to convince my son to cheer for the same sports teams I do. From there, I shared my experience from attending Free the Children’s “We Day”.

We also talked about the Ottawa mother who made the difficult decision to leave her severely autistic son at a government office and we also discuss how to build self esteem in your children. You can find the recording below.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/90633577″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

We Day Empowers And Inspires Our Youth To “Be The Change”

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We Day

I’m going to do my best to accurately recap the events that were National We Day in Ottawa. Considering the magnitude of the event and effect it had on every single person there, I hope I can do it justice. We Day, for those of you who are not familiar, is an event from Free The Children founders Marc and Craig Kielburger, that inspires our youth to be the leaders in creating local and global change.

I spent the day, along with 5000 young adults who all EARNED their tickets to the event with community service, listening to incredible speakers like Martin Sheen, Spencer West & Rob Stewart, as they told their inspirational stories and encouraged the children to get out there and make a difference in the world, one small act at a time.

There were so many highlights from this event that it is impossible to list them all, so I’ll give you a few of my favourites. For me, it started in the backstage media room, where two very young activists anxiously awaited Free the Children founder, Craig Kielburger’s arrival, so that they could ask their questions and press him for knowledge about how they could make a difference. I hadn’t been there 5 minutes and I was already beaming with inspiration at how devoted they were to changing the world.

Next up was Ottawa native and double lung transplant survivor, Helene Campbell, who strode across the stage and spoke as if she had been doing it her whole life. If ever there was someone to channel when you feel like giving up, she absolutely fits the bill. My favourite part is when she challenged the now famous, YOLO slang, by offering up a much more suitable and inspiring term in Carpe Diem. It wasn’t the first time I teared up at the event and it wouldn’t be the last.

My most vulnerable moment came when young Molly Burke took to the stage. I thought I had done my homework on the speakers but somehow I had missed Molly’s bio and videos. Even typing this, I am welling up at how powerful her story of blindness and bullying was. Of everything I saw at We Day, Molly’s story affected me the most. Please take a second to watch a clip of her incredible story and share it with the children in your life.

While We Day is an event that was developed to inspire our youth to take action in creating change for our world, I can tell you first hand that the children are not the only ones affected. I spent a good portion of my day dancing, and wiping away emotional tears from not only the stories of the speakers, but also from watching how inspired all of the children in that building were. It wasn’t just those kids who experienced a change today, I felt it too. I am absolutely confident that my children are going to be raised as better human beings because I attended this event, and I will be forever grateful for that.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite messages of the day, from Marc & Craig Kielburger. It’s not enough to wait for the change or follow the change, you have to go out there and Be The Change! That’s a message I will be passing on to my little ones as they grow into young adults themselves. The event was amazing, I met some really awesome people and leave you with a small sampling of the pictures I was able to snag. I highly recommend attending a We Day if your child ever gets the opportunity and please read up on all the inspiring things that Free The Children are doing to help out both locally and globally.

Photo Bombing Martin Sheen!

Photo Bombing Martin Sheen!

Hanging with Spencer West

Hanging with Spencer West

Blogger, Shannon's View From Here's daughter

Blogger, Shannon’s View From Here’s daughter

Blogger, Macaroni Kid Ottawa's son

Blogger, Macaroni Kid Ottawa’s son

We Day Is Coming To Ottawa!

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National We Day

When I was asked to attend the launch for National We Day, I really had no idea what to expect. If I’m being honest, I hadn’t really heard of We Day or the Free The Children organization but I was interested in finding out more, so I visited their official website and started to watch some of their videos. It only took about three videos before I began to swell up with emotion and inspiration and realized that this was an event that was going to change my life.

At the launch, I was lucky enough to meet Free the Children co-founder Craig Kielburger. In hearing his passion for what they are trying to accomplish, it was clear why this event has grown into the huge success that it is. Listening to the children speak about how this experience has changed them was especially moving and their passion to make the world a better place may or may not have caused a joyful tear or two.

One of the best parts of We Day is that you can’t buy a ticket. You have to earn your ticket through action. 1 Global and 1 Local action, to be exact. You can visit their Take Action page for more info on registering and volunteering.

So, I’m all in. How about you? I can’t think of anything better to do with my time than to teach our children how to be good to each other as we raise a new generation of young adults. I’ve included the list of speakers/performers for National We Day on April 29th, followed by the video that got me all choked up and inspired me to be a part of this movement. I hope you will take a few minutes to check out the website to see how you can take part and make a difference.

Martin Sheen – Emmy® and Golden Globe® Award-winning actor and activist
Chief Shawn Atleo – National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations
Kardinal Offishall – Canadian rapper and record producer
Karl Wolf – International recording artist, Socan& MTV Europe Music Award winner
Shawn Desman – Platinum-selling, JUNO and MMVA Award-winning recording artist
Cast members from the hit TV show DEGRASSI
My Name is Kay – Canadian singer and songwriter
A performance by ONE DROP, a Cirque du Soleil Founder’s initiative
Frank O’Dea – Second Cup founder, Canadian entrepreneur, humanitarian and author
Neverest – Canadian pop-rock band
Jillian Vanstone – principal dancer at the National Ballet of Canada
Rob Stewart – Award winning filmmaker of Sharkwater and Revolution
Tyler Shaw – 2012 Coca Cola COVERS MuchMusic Video Award winner
Molly Burke – Visually impaired Me to We motivational speaker
Spencer West – Me to We motivational speaker and Free The Children ambassador

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to find the answers for you. I really think this is going to affect a lot of people in a great way and I’m so happy that it is coming to the Ottawa area.

Could I look more awkward?? Still, awesome!

Could I look more awkward?? Still, awesome!