Nominate an awesome youth!

It’s that time of year again!

Do you know an awesome youth who you think deserves to be recognized? Here’s your chance! The nomination deadline for the 2015 Youth of Distinction Awards (YODA) is on March 2.

What are the Youth of Distinction Awards?

The awards are non-academic and recognize deserving youth 12-18 of age for the remarkable ways in which they have chosen to live. The award categories are as follows:

• Advocacy
• Arts & Culture
• Environmentalism (Group and Individual)
• Leadership
• Peer Support
• Perseverance
• Sportsmanship
• Volunteerism

Full descriptions of each category can be found here.

How to nominate

You can nominate someone in one of 3 ways:

1. Click on the above links for the category you would like to nominate someone in and it will bring you to an online questionnaire. Fill out the form and hit “Submit.”
2. If submitting it digitally is not your thing, you can also submit a physical letter to the Youth Central office. It must not exceed 500 words and should be written in a minimum 12 point font. (Please refer to this document: COMPLETE-YODA-Nomination-Form-2015COMPLETE-YODA-Nomination-Form-2015)
3. For the creative minds out there, you can create a video blog of yourself talking about the nominee (please exclude any images of the nominee). It should be 3-5 minutes in length.

Race to Nominate

If recognizing others wasn’t enough for you, schools with the most number of nominations will win cash prizes!

1st place = $1000

2nd place = $750

3rd place = $500

Last year, the YODA committee had over 270 nominations in total. With the top 3 schools being Discovering Choices (110 nominations) , Crescent Heights (50 nominations) and Western Canada (33 nominations). If you want to see your school up there, you better start nominating!

More information

If you have any questions, check the official site here or  email yoda@youthcentral.com.

To learn more about the 2014 finalists, you can watch the video playlist below or read their bios here.

Youth Are Awesome bloggers also got a chance to interview some of them!

Got a Penny for Clean Water? – Environmentalism (Group)

Amanda Calleberg – Leadership

Harrison Hart – Sportsmanship

Aliya Karmali – Sportsmanship

Taylor Lambie – Volunteerism

Sukhneer Kaur – Volunteerism

What are you waiting for, hmm? Nominate an awesome youth today, you should!