Sameer Dhar
Edmonton, Alberta
Age at time of award: 19

In 2009, Sameer co-founded GEOMEER, an Edmonton-based charity dedicated to providing families in need with basic necessities so that they may flourish.

After raising $14,000 to help support victims of the Haitian earthquake, Sameer recognized that there was also a strong need for charity closer to home.

Along with the GEOMEER team and forty-one local schools, Sameer raised approximately $100,000 in cash and products which included cleaning supplies, toiletries and non-perishable food - enough to last for several months for local families.

Now in his first year at the University of Alberta, Sameer is enrolled in the Faculty of Sciences. He holds numerous awards for community leadership, including the Alberta Premier's Citizenship Award and plans to expand his charity province-wide.

Megan Fultz
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Age at time of award: 19

Megan became involved with Oxfam at a young age and, once she discovered there wasn’t a local Winnipeg chapter, she decided to help start one.

Megan takes a leading role in Oxfam Winnipeg’s fundraising initiatives, such as Run 4 Darfur which raised $15,000 for relief efforts during that crisis. She is also currently serving her second term as the youngest Prairie Regional Chair of the national organization.

Megan was the Winnipeg volunteer leader for Oxfam's partnership with the band Coldplay in the You’ve Got Power campaign for global citizenship.

This budding philanthropist also donated a portion of her $70,000 TD Scholarship for Community Leadership to the University of Winnipeg’s Global Citizenship Fund for bursaries to assist refugee and First Nations students, affirming that the recognition alone was more than enough.

Tiffany Harrington
Oshawa, Ontario
Age at time of award: 17

It seemed to Tiffany that today’s youth have lost a sense of respect for the elders in their community.

To bridge the divide, she created The Cross Generational Exchange, an initiative which determines participants’ interests across different categories, including culture, fashion, ecology, history, music, nutrition, recreation and sports, and then partners the youth and seniors accordingly.

The project’s goal is to provide a platform for the young and the elderly to share their views in seminars and forums.

The participants are encouraged to think critically, work on projects together and experience days in each others’ lives: seniors are taken to local schools to see what it is like to attend school in today; likewise, students are taken to seniors’ facilities where they experience what an average day is like for their counterparts.

Mohsin Khan
Toronto, Ontario
Age at time of award: 19

Regent Park and Moss Park are among Toronto’s roughest neighbourhoods.

Mohsin believes many of their problems stem from a lack of youth involvement. To create a solution, he established a non-profit, peer-lead channel for positive youth involvement opportunities.

He founded Lead2Peace in 2009 and now leads a team of over 25 youth. The Lead2Peace team takes students outside their classrooms to place them into situations where they witness community-wide problems firsthand.

With a $2,000 budget, the students must come up with their own social initiative plan to support their chosen issue.

Funded by donations and corporate sponsors, Lead2Peace is not only encouraging home-grown answers to stubborn problems poised, it is well-positioned to becoming an enduring cornerstone in the communities it serves.