The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts @WeDay #NationalWeDay 2015 #Ottawa

If you have ever had the privilege of attending a We Day you can't help but be moved by the sheer size and magnitude of the event. April 1st, 2015 I attended the 50th We Day in Ottawa. More than 16,000 youth attended this by invitation only event. You can't buy a ticket to this event, you need to earn your way through acts of kindness, action and support both locally and globally. 

All those kids taking action to make their world a better place. But sometimes we lose sight of the individuals that make up those 16,000 plus. During this event, the 50th We Day celebration, I had the privilege to bring the focus down to the individual level and speak with two youth from Ottawa making a difference. 

Meet Trinity, a student from St. Leonard School. Trinity is actively involved in the school's Free The Children group and activities. 

• Her FTC school group has something called the Bucket List. Group members make a bucket list of 10 random acts of kindness they will do over the school year. It includes what those acts will be and the number of times the member plans to do each act of kindness on their list. I am happy to report that Trinity completed her bucket list! 
• Trinity and her friend had fundraisers such as a bake sale and lemonade stand during a garage sale to raise funds and awareness.
• She and another student gave a speech at a mini town hall meeting; one presented in English and the other in French.
• Trinity also attended a youth summit Keep the Promise, which dealt with child poverty.

Image via Keep the Promise Student Summit - Ottawa

Meet Tyler, a student from St. Matthew High School. Tyler has been busy working with Free The Children at his school for 3 years. 

• Tyler was one of twenty students to receive a Caring Canadian award from the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada April 1st, during the National We Day celebrations. 

Caring Cdn Award Recipients We Day 2015 Image via David Johnston on twitter @GGDavidJohnston

• He has participated in Scare Hunger, We Create Change Clean Water, and We Create Change for Education to name a few. 
• I asked Tyler what his favourite activity he has participating in, and he told me it was making Global Care Packages for kids in Haiti, (which included clothes, school supplies, etc) and becoming pen pals with one of the children. 

Now take these two inspirational kids and multiple them by thousands of kids just like them, working hard to make positive change in their world and we can easily see how We Days around the world have grown to be such big events and celebrations of what can be done.Ultimately We Day isn't about big but rather how small can become big, and the cumulative effects of individual acts. In my post, One small action a day = impact and change in a big way! it is easy to see why small grass root efforts are so important to our world and to our youth who are the leaders of tomorrow.

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts.

It was a real privilege to meet Tyler and Trinity and I hope their stories inspire you, and you'll share their stories with a youth in your life so they can see what enormous potential "we" all have to bring about change in some way everyday.

Yep, just me Cathy thinking out loud about We Day and some inspirational kids.

Note: I have not been compensated for this post. This post is merely to share my experience at National We Day 2015. I had the privilege of attending National We Day 2015 and interviewing these Ottawa Youth as the guest of TELUS. Being given the opportunity to participate in this event is very much appreciated, and I thank them for this.