Zach’s newest mission (but loooong-time dream) has been to meet the awesome, funny, generous Ellen Degeneres! Ellen has been a big inspiration to Zach for many reasons – but mostly for how funny and how kind she is. We love watching her show and seeing all the goofy things she does with her guests (we REALLY love her new show Game of Games! P.S. She’s looking for new contestants – apply here!).

Zach believes that he could learn quite a bit from meeting her – he wants to grow up to be just as generous – all the while remaining humble and happy to see others succeed or feel good.

Ellen is the topic of many conversations around here – which is great for us as parents. We’re always trying to find ways to express how we feel about community involvement, giving when we already have so much ourselves, and noticing when something needs to change in our communities. We often tell Zach that we might not have a lot of money to donate or give, we have TIME to share to make things better. So, we shall see what happens with this dream of Zach’s! If you happen to come across any of Zach’s tweets, Instagram posts or Facebook posts, please feel free to share and tag @TheEllenShow!

We decided to invite Ellen along on some of Zach’s journey – she’s a GREAT sport!

What a GREAT way to end an amazing dream! Zach met with our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ask him to make youth mental health a PRIORITY! Thank goodness Ellen was there to help.

Grandpa drove Zach’s RV everywhere we went and followed behind when Derek and Zach were biking. He also fancied himself a trainer and liked to show Zach moves he thought would improve his performance. Ellen has GREAT form.

Derek and Zach stretching on the VERY last day of the journey – just before they headed in to Ottawa. So lucky to have the super flexible Stew Garner and Ellen Degeneres join them that day.

 

Zach was very honoured to received several awards over the last few months. This was when he received the highest honour you could in our City of Barrie – the Youth Spirit Catcher Award. Ellen was a little surprised he received it so young. We were all looking pretty spiffy 🙂