Schools
We Day Minnesota: Breck Student To Co-Host Community Service Celebration
Breck School senior Hutton Phillips will join The Jonas Brothers and thousands of youth as she and her brother co-chair We Day, a celebration of youth service coming to the Xcel Energy Center next fall.
She’s spent time with HIV positive orphans in Ethiopia. She’s traveled to Rwanda to see first hand impacts of a war-torn country. She’s writing a curriculum that she’ll teach to students about genocide.
The kicker?
Hutton Phillips is only 18 years old and she’s working to change the world.
As a senior at Breck School in Golden Valley, Phillips said that community service is second nature.
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“My dad taught me that philanthropy is just part of life,” Phillips said. “Giving back is just something that my family has always done.”
So, it comes as no surprise that Phillips and her brother, Dean, will co-chair one of the biggest youth service events in the nation--We Day.
Related: Watch a 3 minute video that explains what We Day is.
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Originally formed in Canada, We Day is a movement that is quickly gaining momentum. The event is a day-long educational forum that celebrates the service work that young people are doing in the community. On Feb. 6, Phillips and her brother went to Patrick Henry High School to announce that Minneapolis would host the state’s first-ever We Day at the Xcel Energy Center on Oct. 8, 2013.
And she wasn’t alone. Phillips and her brother were joined by Breck alum and Mayor RT Rybak and The Jonas Brothers, who will perform at the event in October.
But how does We Day work?
Kids who want to attend the celebration can’t buy a ticket. Instead, they have to earn one. When schools sign up for We Act, teachers will receive action kits and online resources to help their students begin service projects.
Once a student completes a local and global service project, they get a ticket to We Day.
The event, which Phillips says will draw roughly 18,000 students, is free. Funding is provided by sponsors including Golden Valley-based General Mills and charitable donations given to Free the Children.
"Breck has taught us that service is something that you always find time for," Phillips said, noting that she has dedicated time to work on service projects in school every week. "We Day really celebrates how much our youth have done, but also inspires them to do more and keep reaching out in the community.”
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Get your school to sign up for We Act here. Learn more about We Day in Minnesota here.
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