Chenel Morrissette and Madison Topley, Grade 10 students at Holy Rosary High School, were beaming after finding out they had won the SaskTel Be Kind Online challenge with a video they put together promoting kindness. Taylor Weaver Meridian Source
It’s a timeless message, but kindness always wins.
For Chenel Morrissette and Madison Topley, two Grade 10 students at Holy Rosary High School, that message is ringing to the tune of $5,000 after a video they made promoting kindness won the SaskTel Be Kind Online challenge.
The challenge was all about putting an end to cyberbullying, and entries came in the form of 60-second videos which were posted to Instagram.
“We were told to make a 60-second video on Instagram about how words have impacted us, either positively or negatively,” said Chenel.
“We said a spoken part and then we got some photos of people in their pink shirts, and I filmed me putting sticky notes in public places with encouraging messages, and put it all into one video,” added Madison.
Chenel explained how using Instagram as the challenge platform fit well as more younger people would have a chance to see the entries.
“It’s a timeless message, that kindness does win, and I think it’s a good reminder because we may know that, but we can get caught up in other things and forget that,” said Madison.
The $5,000 the pair won is being split four ways, with half being divided between the two students, and the other half going to charity.
“SaskTel let us choose which charities we wanted to give it to, so a quarter goes to me, a quarter goes to Chenel, and we’re splitting the charity money into two,” said Madison. “We’re giving a quarter of it to the local SPCA and we’re giving a quarter of it to the Ronald McDonald House in Saskatoon.”
Madison chose the SPCA because she knows they could always use some extra financial assistance, and Chenel chose the Ronald McDonald House Charities as “they really helped my parents out when I was born.”
The two students are also members of the school’s Kindness Is Power team and will be delivering bullying prevention workshops with Grade 5 classes throughout the LCSD. “We’re going to our elementary school so it will be nice to see some familiar faces,” said Madison.
“We are really proud of them because we think the video is a true depiction of who they are. They’re creative and kind young people, and we’re really happy to see that be acknowledged,” said Melissa Plamondon, a counsellor at Holy Rosary.
“They took the idea and ran with it and created an awesome video, and to their surprise, they won the SaskTel challenge on Pink Shirt Day.”
