Twenty-four Hillcrest students from Grade 6 to 8 went to Saskatoon for the We Day conference on Nov. 6. They were among the roughly 15,000 other students who took in the messages and learned a little about what they can do to affect change in their communities.
The conference seeks to motivate students and encourage young people to make a difference in their cities and towns.
The students all created action plans in order to earn their spot at We Day. Now they are back from the conference, the students can put those plans into action, and each plan has taken a life of its own for the individual students.
For Grade 8 student Brenna Lawrence, it was her second trip to the conference after attending last year's event.
"It felt different, almost better," said Lawrence in regards to her second trip to the conference.
After the last year's conference students took part in We Are Silent, with students taking a vow of silence for the day to support various causes.
"I was silent, and I raised money for clean drinking water for life," said Lawrence, who raised $900 for Free the Children, which was distributed to clean drinking water projects that organization works on.
Last year, Hillcrest school raised funds to provide clean drinking water for life to 27 people who otherwise wouldn't have access to that necessary resource.
After this year's conference, Grade 6 student Skylar Vicary was particularly intrigued by hearing stories of people going to impoverished regions in order to help build schools.
"I was just glad to know that people were helping them," he said.
Grade 7 student Ethan Kazakoff said the We Day experience was "amazing" and that he was inspired by students helping build schools as well.
He also enjoyed the talk given by Spencer West, a man who was born without legs.
"It must have been challenging for him, going on without legs," said Kazakoff, about West, who walked from Calgary to Edmonton on his hands and also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
Catherine Billesburger, the Hillcrest teacher who kept the students organized for the conference said the students learned that a community of youth can be the drivers of change.
The We Day conference included inspirational speeches from Martin Luther King III, Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Molly Burke, a visually impaired motivational speaker, as well as Marc and Craig Kielburger, the founders of Free the Children, which hosts the event in cities around North America.
The conferences encourage students to take action in their communities, and the Hillcrest students all have some plan they will put into action for the remainder of the school year.
The students all came home from the conference with a little cardboard schoolhouse that they can fill with coins. Once the house is full of coins, it is worth one brick to go toward a school, and each school requires 500 bricks.
Lawrence helped out United Way Estevan during their telethon, while others have spent time helping the Estevan Humane Society. Vicary is collecting aluminum can tabs to build wheelchairs, and Kazakoff will be fundraising for the STARS air ambulance service.
"I wanted to put a little bit more ownership on the students and give them an opportunity to get involved in something that they're interested in," said Billesburger regarding the expansion of the students' individual action plans this year. "It's really neat to see how they're engaging."
