One day, when they were in the eighth grade, Christopher Lee and a group of friends decided to spend a Sunday a little differently.
“We were just like, ‘Hmm, there’s something wrong in our community. We’re able to live such a nice and amazing life, but there are people who aren’t able to live that same life as we do, so let’s do something about it,'” he said.
“We decided then just to go out to the store, buy a bunch of bread, buy a bunch of sandwich supplies, then just go to a house one day, put some sandwiches together and then go out.”
After posting what they’d done on social media, Lee says others interested in helping reached out.
“People started messaging us, ‘hey Christopher what what did you do today? Can I join? How can I help?’ And that just continued to build.”
Eventually, it led to the founding of Helping Hearts, a youth led non profit that serves meals and organizes community events.
Now in the tenth grade, co-founder Lee says he thinks the biggest impact Helping Hearts has had is on the youth volunteering.
“I think it was our fourth event, there was a volunteer who came up to me, this volunteer was a private school student, they’ve never really been to the downtown eastside. They’ve never really volunteered, they were just in grade eight,” he said.
“They told me just this one single sentence that kind of broke my heart. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. What can I do to help more?'”
Lee says its important to give youth a voice.
“In today’s world, it’s so easy to dismiss youth as just, ‘oh, this generation,’ or ‘they’re always on their phone,'” he said.
“What I’ve learned is that just by saying, ‘I’m here. I’m here to listen. Tell me what your ideas are, I’m here to get them done,’ you can really harness the energy of youth.”