Parq Vancouver, Victory Square and WE team up to inspire community action: Goal for Vancouver to become the most caring city

VANCOUVER, May 7, 2018 /CNW/ - Aiming to bolster participation in community involvement across Vancouver, Parq Vancouver, alongside Victory Square Technologies, has partnered with WE to launch WE Care Vancouver. This new initiative aims to strengthen the city's involvement in community service by offering a series of free tools for volunteering, workshops, and a celebration of these world-changing actions through the first-ever WE Day Family event coming to Vancouver on November 21, 2018 at Rogers Arena.

Vancouverites have a desire for stronger community connections, yet a 2017 study conducted by the Vancouver Foundation found that participation in almost every community-related activity has dropped since 2012. When asked what prevents them from getting involved, 44 per cent of Vancouver residents age 18 to 24 reported not being aware of opportunities and 33 per cent reported feeling like they have nothing to offer.

"At Parq Vancouver we believe that Vancouver can be known as the most caring city in Canada, and we want to do our part to make this happen" said Jasmine Marchant, Director of Human Resources for Parq Vancouver.

"Citizens want to make a difference but they don't know where to start. Parq Vancouver has partnered with WE because they make doing good, doable for everyone. With WE's decades of experience empowering individuals through world-class experiential service-learning programs, together we have created an initiative that will make giving back easy and accessible to everyone in our great city," said Joe Brunini, President & CEO of Parq Vancouver.

"In Vancouver and all over BC we have already seen the incredible spirit of giving amongst youth involved in WE programming, resulting in measurable impacts," said co-founder of WE, Craig Kielburger. "Through our work with students involved in the WE Schools program last year alone, students in BC volunteered more than 830,260 hours and raised over $1.8 million for more than 850 local and global causes. Together with Parq Vancouver's dedication to community service we are excited to continue the momentum in building a culture of caring across the city."

"Victory Square Technologies (CSE:VST) is proud to be a major sponsor of WE Care Vancouver. My colleagues and I embrace the amazing power and passion that the WE movement has sparked in our global youth," said Victory Square CEO Shafin Diamond Tejani. "With the inclusion of families at WE Care Vancouver, we are excited for the great things that will ignite our passion for making a difference for our city, our country and our world."

WE Care Vancouver offers free resources and activities to help residents of Vancouver—together with their families, friends or co-workers—get involved in their community and create positive change. As a cause inclusive initiative, people are encouraged to take action on any issues they are passionate about, leading the community to support a wide range of charitable organizations across the city.

We.org/wecarevancouver  is the hub to access all WE Care Vancouver resources to guide people in their pursuits to get involved:

• WE Care Vancouver family workshops: A series of free service-learning sessions for adults and children, focusing on civic engagement activities and how to implement them in day-to-day life, year-round.
• WE Care Vancouver guide: The digital guide to doing good in Vancouver, including step-by-step instructions to begin, build, implement and celebrate the results of participants' own volunteer campaigns.
• WE Care Vancouver e-newsletter: A weekly dose of inspiration, containing easy ideas for doing good every day, as well as information on upcoming WE Care Vancouver events.
• Dedicated support team: A team of social good experts that are available to answer questions, offer guidance and help program participants every step of the way.
• WE Day Family Vancouver: Those who participate in the WE Care Vancouver initiative will have the opportunity to earn their ticket to the inaugural WE Day Family Vancouver. Coming to Rogers Arena on November 21, 2018, 18,000 adults and kids will experience this powerful life-changing evening of inspiring speeches and musical performances. Alongside WE Day Family Vancouver, Parq Vancouver and Victory Square are helping to bring this exciting event to the city in order to celebrate the impact created through community service and inspire families to continue making a difference in their own backyards. WE Day Family events, which started in Toronto in 2016, have hosted renowned speakers and performers such as Nelly Furtado, Paula Abdul, Andre de Grasse, Ban Ki-Moon, Jacob Tremblay, and more.

To learn more about the WE Care Vancouver initiative, and to sign up for the program, please visit we.org/wecarevancouver.

About Parq Vancouver 
Fresh on the scene as a leading international entertainment destination, Parq is at the heart of downtown Vancouver's energetic entertainment district. Built to meet LEED Gold Standards, Parq Vancouver's dynamic offerings include two luxury and lifestyle hotels within one complex, Western Canada's first JW Marriott Hotel and a first-to-market Autograph Collection Hotel, the DOUGLAS. Parq Vancouver offers locals and guests instant access to a wide range of amenities, including world-class casino space spanning across two floors and featuring 11 private gaming salons, a 30,000 square-foot rooftop park, more than 60,000 square feet of well-appointed, flexible meeting and event space, and eight chef-driven restaurants and lounges from restaurant developers and James Beard Award nominees Elizabeth Blau and her Canadian husband, Chef Kim Canteenwalla. For more information please visit parqvancouver.com.

About WE 
WE is a family of organizations making doing good, doable. WE is made up of WE Charity, empowering domestic and international change, ME to WE, a social enterprise that creates socially conscious products and experiences to help support the charity, and WE Day, filling stadiums around the world with the greatest celebration of social good. WE enables youth and families to better the world – supporting 7,200+ local and global causes by volunteering millions of hours of service, shopping daily with an impact, and raising millions of dollars that directly benefit their local communities and the world. Globally, our teams in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have provided more than 1 million people with clean water, built 1,000 schools and schoolrooms overseas, and empowered more than 200,000 children with access to education. WE was founded more than 20 years ago by social entrepreneurs, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. Join the movement today at WE.org.

SOURCE WE Charity

For more information on WE Care Vancouver, please contact: Parq Vancouver, Tiffany Soper, Partner, Avenue PR, 1.604.783.0013, [email protected]; WE, Kayla Ciaschi, Manager, Public Relations, 1.416.576.4819, [email protected]