Today WE Day, a series of global educational events celebrating youth making a difference in their local and global communities, alongside Co-Title Sponsors Microsoft Philanthropies and Allstate, bring together world-renowned speakers and performers including Ciara, Kat Graham, Lilly Singh, The Band Perry, Paula Abdul, Jordan Smith, Marlee Matlin, Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks’ Ricardo Lockette and Doug Baldwin, George Takei, Madison Beer, Bailee Madison, Dominic Sherwood, Becca Tobin, Kardinal Offishall, Seattle Sounders’ Jordan Morris, Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird, SOL, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and more. Alongside international activists and WE Day co-founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, the cast of returning WE Day fan favorites and new faces join 15,000 students and educators from over 550 schools to celebrate the contributions of young people and kick-start another year of change.
WE Day Seattle celebrates the remarkable stories of people leading change and provides the youth in attendance inspiration to find their place within the WE Day movement—a movement that celebrates and inspires this generation’s shift from me to we. Joining the WE Day stage will be local young people with inspiring personal stories like Abigail Houck, age 25, who at only 9 years-old was diagnosed with childhood Leukemia. A once athletic child, she found herself feeling tired and broken as the medication being taken to fight the disease altered her mood, memory and weight. Determined to regain control of her life, Abigail began dreaming about attending the University of Washington—a school she passed daily on her way to treatment. As treatments took a toll on her family’s finances, Abigail received a 4-year scholarship from Cancer for College—an organization providing young people impacted by cancer with the opportunity to continue their education. Now cancer free, Abigail is an advocate for pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Though the odds may have been stacked against her, she always knew she would live to share her story and aid those who followed in her path. Now, as the Pacific Northwest Director of Cancer for College, Abigail is determined to make her gift of life count by providing college scholarships to cancer patients who experienced the very same hardships she once did. Abigail is just one of the many young people who will share their story to motivate their WE Day peers.
More than a one-day event, WE Day is connected to the yearlong WE Schools program, which provides hands-on, student-led campaigns designed to enhance a school’s existing social initiatives or to spark new ones. WE Schools helps young people turn the day’s inspiration into sustained action. By taking action on one local and one global cause, students are equipped with the tools to succeed academically, in the working world and as active citizens.
In the 2014/2015 school year, students and educators from across Washington state participated in remarkable social change. Over 224,000 youth were inspired to take steps to improve the world through WE Schools; volunteering more than 569,500 hours for local and global causes and raising over $897,000 in support of local and global organizations.
You can’t buy a ticket to WE Day—students from across the country earn their way by the actions they take on one local and one global cause of their choice. WE Day is free of charge to the thousands of students and teachers in attendance at the event and statewide, thanks to the generous support of partners led by Co-Title Sponsors Microsoft Philanthropies and Allstate.
As supporters of WE Day Seattle, Microsoft Philanthropies is proud to empower young people—in Seattle and around the world—to achieve more through its YouthSpark initiative; and Allstate emboldens future generations with the strength, confidence and skills to rise up as leaders and realize their full potential—and to show the world that good starts young.
WE Day is the movement of our time—a movement of young people leading local and global change. WE Day celebrates and inspires this generation’s shift from me to we—towards acting with intention, leading with compassion, and a belief in the power of community. WE Day is one of the world’s largest registered non-profit initiatives on social media, with more than five million followers. This year alone over 200,000 young people will come together in 14 stadium gatherings across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. to take part in this unprecedented educational initiative.
More than a one-day event, WE Day is connected to a yearlong free educational program, WE Schools, which provides educational resources and campaigns to help young people turn the day’s inspiration into sustained action. WE Day and WE Schools are cause inclusive, empowering young people to find their passion and create the change they want to see. Together WE Day and WE Schools are a blueprint for building the next generation of global change-makers. For more information, please visit www.we.org.