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Global News : Friday, May 25, 2012 6:10 PM

Left to right - actor and Virgin Unite ambassador Cory Monteith;Maureen Webb;Project Limelight Society co-founder;Sir Richard Branson;Virgin Group founder;Donalda Weaver;Project Limelight Society co-founder;Jocelyn Helland;manager;Broadway Youth Resource Centre;and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson;join young participants of the Project Limelight Society to announce Virgin Mobile Canada and Virgin Unite's $50,000 grant to Project Limelight and the Broadway Youth Resource Centre

Photo Credit: Submitted ,

Sir Richard Branson and Glee star Cory Monteith were in town on Friday to announce a significant donation to the Broadway Youth Resource Centre (BYRC) and Project Limelight Society.

The grants, valued at $26,500 for Limelight, and $25,000 for BYRC, come from Virgin Mobile Canada and Virgin Unite, and were raised from the proceeds of the Virgin Mobile’s 2011 RE*Generation phone.

“I love finding any excuse to come back to Vancouver, especially when I have an opportunity to work with Richard to help at-risk youth,” said Monteith. “By teaming up with Virgin Unite and the RE*Generation movement, we’re finding real ways to end youth homelessness – especially in Vancouver where the need is so great.”

Branson agreed, saying a single program can ignite change.

“A year after Cory and I introduced the RE*Generation phone, Virgin Mobile customers have helped raise the funds to make promising progress," he said. "With 65,000 youth who don’t have a place to call home each night across Canada, organizations like Project Limelight and Broadway Youth Resource Centre are urgently needed to create new possibilities for youth to access resources and services that normally wouldn’t be available to them.”

Project Limelight

Part of a brand new partnership with Virgin Unite, Project Limelight Society is a free theatre development charity that inspires youth to awaken their imagination and creativity within the arts. The Vancouver-based program gives youth the skills to discover new talents while developing the confidence to make lasting decisions for the future. As a grant recipient, Project Limelight Society will use their $26,550 donation to support their year-round performing arts program, ongoing theatre workshops and a food security program in their local community.

“The performing arts provide a creative outlet which benefits young people in all aspects of their lives,” said Maureen Webb, co-founder. “Performing on stage and bringing a character to life takes confidence, self-esteem and courage – strengths developed at Project Limelight!"

For more details about Project Limelight Society, head to www.projectlimelightsociety.org 

Broadway Youth Resource Centre 

Located in the heart of Vancouver, Broadway Youth Resource Centre has been giving young people the chance to learn and develop new life skills since 1999. From health to housing services and everything in between, BYRC has continued to be a flagship multi-agency organization for homeless and at-risk youth in Vancouver. Utilizing their $25,000 grant, the organization will be able to create warm and welcoming Resource Room that will allow homeless youth to access a wide range of services that will help them gain knowledge, skills and confidence needed to create a better life for themselves.

“At Broadway Youth Resource Centre, we aim to provide a one-stop centre to all at-risk and homeless youth in Vancouver,” said Jocelyn Helland, manager. “Education, employment skills and counselling are just some of the services we can offer and with this RE*Generation grant, we’ll be able to continue providing further programs to youth between the ages of 12 and 24.”

How can you help?

1. Change For A Dollar: Virgin Mobile Members can add $1 to their mobile phone bill each month. The monthly dollar will then be directly donated to Virgin Unite and the RE*Generation movement

2. Text To Donate: Canadians can donate $5 to Virgin Unite and RE*Generation by texting REGEN to 30333

3. Sign The Petition: We’re asking Parliament to recognize November 17th as National Youth Homelessness Awareness Day (NYHAD). Head to virginmobile.ca/regen to add your name to our online petition and help make NYHAD a reality! 

MARSHA LEDERMAN

VANCOUVER— From Saturday's Globe and Mail

PublishedFriday, May. 25, 2012 9:17PM EDT

Last updatedFriday, May. 25, 2012 10:11PM EDT

They came to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the knighted celebrity entrepreneur and the Canadian Glee dreamboat, with money to give and a story to tell, respectively. In a jammed space, still under construction, Sir Richard Branson announced his Virgin Unite foundation would grant $26,550 to the Project Limelight Society, a new local charity that has been bankrolled by two sisters – a casting director and a chartered accountant – to offer a theatre experience to at-risk youth.

Video

Cory Monteith recalls his life as a street kid

Then Cory Monteith explained why.

He was a 19-year-old teenager going down “a very dark path” when he met Maureen Webb in Nanaimo, B.C.

“I was literally walking from the London Drugs with bags of groceries at a loose end in my life, a real transitional phase, looking for the next thing to do. I didn’t know what that was,” Mr. Monteith, who has spoken of his teenage alcohol and drug use in the past, told The Globe and Mail. “She was a friend of a friend who suggested on the side of the street ... that I come into her studios and take these acting classes. And I said, ‘What am I going to do with acting?’”

What he did, eventually, was become a TV star.

“It was that initial inspiration that started me on what’s going to be a 10-year career so far, culminating in Glee, which is a huge success. And it all started with a Project Limelight-like thing,” said Mr. Monteith, now 30, whose TV character Finn Hudson’s personal development is also aided (albeit in a different way) by his membership in the high school glee club.

When Ms. Webb’s mother died in 2010, she and her sister Donalda Weaver felt they wanted to do something meaningful with their lives – and their money. They had grown up poor in East Vancouver, with a single mother, and they understood the impact a creative intervention could have on at-risk lives.

“I told [Mr. Monteith] about this idea last summer,” Ms. Webb said. “He was very much in on the idea stage. Of course he got busy having to go back to Glee ... but he kept in touch, and then this opportunity came up and his connections with Virgin really helped us,” said Ms. Webb, who stresses she was not the first person to cast Mr. Monteith, nor did she cast him in any of his big roles.

Meanwhile, she and Ms. Weaver launched the program in January with 26 children, then aged 7 to 11. One of them is Celestine Hilechi, who turned 12 in April. Born in a refugee camp in Tanzania, she moved to Canada six years ago. The family – her mother, who washes dishes at a restaurant, and father, who is currently away planting trees, and three younger brothers – now live in social housing in Strathcona, a few blocks from Project Limelight.

“I sing a lot,” Celestine told The Globe. “I used to be very shy about singing around people, but I got over that because of Project Limelight.”

On June 2, she’ll star as the Queen of Hearts in Project Limelight’s inaugural production Wonderland. She also writes songs. At Friday’s event, she spoke in English and Swahili.

Celestine and the other girls were buzzing on Friday afternoon, not because of the grant, but because of the presence of Mr. Monteith.

“Can you bring us up on Glee?” one girl asked him. “Can you mention my name?”

Mr. Monteith is an “ambassador” for Virgin Unite, which has taken a special interest in youth homelessness, following an incident Sir Richard recounted on Friday in Vancouver.

“I was travelling into Toronto a few years ago and it was about 2 a.m. in the morning,” he told the jammed room. “It was a freezing cold night, there was thick snow on the ground, and I saw a bunch of kids huddled over [a subway grate] to try to keep warm. And it just got me thinking that maybe we could help a little bit in trying to help some of those kids get off the streets and get their lives back together,” said Sir Richard, who also announced a $25,000 grant for the Broadway Youth Resource Centre.

The London-based business mogul was in Vancouver to promote his airline – part of his $21-billion (U.S.) multinational Virgin Group.

He may have called B.C. a “state” and Vancouverites “Vancouvians” –according to reports from Thursday’s airport publicity extravaganza – but Sir Richard seems to have found time to look into the local homelessness issue.

“From what I’ve heard, Vancouver is getting better and better ... but obviously, as I’m sure the mayor will acknowledge, there’s still work to do.” (Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was also at the event, and was next to Sir Richard during the interview.)

After their speeches, Sir Richard and Mr. Monteith – who each found fame and fortune through music – were treated to an impromptu kids’ performance that included an at-times slightly off-key but nonetheless kick-ass rendition of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way.

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