{"id":23564,"date":"2019-04-18T12:19:36","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23564"},"modified":"2019-04-25T17:23:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T21:23:06","slug":"give-back-award-winners-offered-8000-hours-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/give-back-award-winners-offered-8000-hours-to-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Back Award winners offered 8,000 hours to community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students who dedicated their high school careers to giving back to their communities were honoured by Magna and Neighbourhood Network for their contributions last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, to mark National Volunteer Week, 20 students from across York Region were joined at Magna’s Aurora headquarters with their families for the celebration, at which students received a scholarship to pursue their post-secondary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Careers in the sciences was a common theme for many of the Aurora-based Give Back honourees, including Williams students Rachel Gallagher and Nicole In.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is recognition that\neven the smallest things we do for our community makes a difference, has an\nimpact and doesn\u2019t go unnoticed,\u201d said Rachel, who is eyeing an undergraduate\nin biological or life sciences \u201cI really took that to heart because it means no\nmatter what you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re doing something, and that is a start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel\u2019s citation pays\ntribute to the priority she set for herself to volunteer both within her school\nand wider community, taking a lead on in-school fundraising initiatives ranging\nfrom Newmarket\u2019s Coldest Night of the Year to Lemons for Leukemia, which\nchallenges students to raise funds by seeing who can swallow the greatest\nnumber of lemon slices to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among these, Rachel says\nLight the Night, a walk for Leukemia research, was the most meaningful of her\nhigh school career, leading the Williams team this past October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe raised over $3,000,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cRaising that amount of money and being able to give back to the\ncommunity and help fund research was really amazing. Attending the event that\nnight was so emotional and so impactful. We walked back to SickKids and some\npatients smiled and waved down at us. You could just directly see your impact\non others. Even though a few thousand dollars isn\u2019t a lot in the long run \u2013 you\nneed millions in research dollars \u2013 it is just amazing to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicole, who plans to pursue a\ndegree in life sciences with a focus on mental health, was recognized for her\nability to \u201cfind joy and purpose in helping others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe believes that\nvolunteering holds the potential of changing the local community and the world in a positive way,\u201d reads\nher citation, which underscored her work for the Canadian Cancer Society, the\nBest Buddies Club, Williams\u2019 Peer Mentor group and her involvement in the\nschool\u2019s Me to We club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis award means a lot,\u201d\nsaid Nicole. \u201cI feel it shows that anything you do really has an impact and\nyou\u2019re actually impacting the lives of others in a positive way. This propels\nme to continue on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked which volunteer\nexperiences she has found most rewarding, she cites a fundraiser she\nspearheaded with her sister last year: a restaurant fundraiser at Kelsey\u2019s\nAurora to benefit Blue Door Shelters. \n\n\u201cIt is really important\nthat we look out for other community members who are in need and just support\nthem,\u201d she said\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Students who dedicated their high school careers to giving back to their communities were honoured by Magna and Neighbourhood Network for their contributions last week. On Thursday, to mark National Volunteer Week, 20 students from across York Region were joined at Magna’s Aurora headquarters with their families for the celebration, at which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-684","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-11 03:13:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-18-01.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}