Hello friends and family!
It has been a very long time since I have written and there is so much new to say that I am just going to quickly spew some verbal vomit all over this page in hopes that you can pick some of it up. After that disgusting metaphor… here goes…
I have my tour! My tour is called "Think We!" and it is sponsored by Disney's Club Penguin – which is a safe online environment for elementary school kids. It features penguin characters and moderators so that children are not subject to inappropriate content. My tour partner's name is Leah and she and I have spent the past month and a half or so gathering information and putting together our hour-long keynote address to be delivered to our main audience of elementary school children. It has been a considerably difficult task for myself as I have not been in a disciplined elementary school atmosphere for quite some time and I am learning to re-familiarize myself with school rules as well as re-learn how to deliver a presentation to a younger audience. Although it has been challenging, I definitely have found it rewarding and I am excited to put it to use at our first scheduled gig shortly after our second "We Day".
For those of you who don't know what a "We Day" is, it is essentially an event that Free the Children puts on to help inspire youth to commit themselves to acts of social justice throughout the coming school year. I just arrived back in Toronto from a trip to Vancouver where we held our first of three We Days. In attendance (and on the stage) at the Vancouver We Day was: His Holiness The Dali Lama (Big hit, the Lama), Sarah McLachlan , Jane Goodall, Mia Farrow, K'Naan, and Jason Mraz, along with my roommate Spencer West and several other Free the Children speakers.
We are putting on our second We Day here in Toronto on Monday and we are expecting a crowd of about 16,000 youth who get to MISS SCHOOL and come to participate in this pretty hip event. While the lineup in Toronto isn't AS incredible as that of Vancouver, it is still pretty impressive: Robert Kennedy Junior, the cast of Degrassi, Elie Wiesel, and Justin Bieber are among the list of presenters.
It has been pretty hectic around the office for the past couple of weeks as the majority of our staff has committed much of their time to putting these events on. I was assigned to the "Honoured Guests" team in Vancouver and was responsible for entertaining some of the presenting sponsors of the event including entrepreneur and We Day Chair Lorne Segal and some of his very influential friends from all over the world including Texas and … Italy! I was able to practice my Italian with some of them! It was great. In my suite as well were representatives from the Brooke Wade Foundation (including Mr. Wade himself) and from Environmental Packaging Technologies. I even got to meet the Mayor of Vancouver who will be in office for THE OLYMPICS! Heyooo!
In Toronto I'll be on the Seating, Parking and Transportation team where it will be my responsibility to help direct 300+ school buses and students into the Air Canada Centre all before our 9:00 start time. We have acquired the help of about 600 volunteers spread throughout the building and my tour partner Leah has the unenviable job of coordinating and organizing where they belong. This weekend for me will be spent mostly at the venue where I'll be organizing our group of volunteers and arranging where they belong and then helping out where I am needed – other teams will definitely be needing assistance in preparation for our ONE load in day on Sunday.
This whole production has been incredibly educational to be a part of. Despite our job descriptions ranging from website design to tour speaking to marketing, we have all shifted roles to help put on this incredible "rock concert" for social change along with over 20 other celebratory events and dinners scheduled throughout the several days. Despite the average age of our office being about 24 years old, we have managed to carry out this event with impressive professionalism. Of course there have been some minor hiccups (The Dalai Lama arrived a half hour early and wanted to speak longer, registration table issues, curtains falling minutes before an event, etc.) and many stressful moments, much of the finished product has come across smooth and polished. It has been exciting to be a part of and (knock on wood) I hope Toronto's We Day goes as smooth as Vancouver's.
In other news, I have had some time to see a good deal of Toronto on the weekends – I met K'Naan one weekend, I went to the Canadian National Exhibition and saw Pitbull with a friend from U of M, I was introduced to the Canadian rock band Blue Rodeo and attended one of their concerts, and every weekend I have been to the Sports Centre Café to watch college football (GO BLUE!) and the Tigers and now HOCKEY when I get a chance. Wings play today in Sweden!!
I am root root rooting for the Tigers… if they don't win the division it's a shame. And I hope to come back home to Michigan next weekend as it is Canadian Thanksgiving and I'll have a four day weekend! I need to connect with Leah though and we need to figure out what our schedule is like so that we are prepared enough to go on the road as soon as I get back.
Lastly, Leah and I intend to blog often throughout our tour and perhaps create another blog specifically for our tour experiences. We are very excited about the opportunity for travel that this tour presents to us and know that we are going to meet very interesting and exciting people all over the world. I look forward to hearing from you and I hope write soon about the success of our second We Day!
