40th Sun Youth bicycle distribution | “We want to celebrate positive youth”

Around a hundred young people were given new bicycles on Saturday as part of the annual distribution organized by Sun Youth to highlight the positive actions they have taken in their communities.

This is the 40^e edition of this distribution made possible thanks to a philanthropist who remained anonymous for 35 years, Avi Morrow, and whose identity was revealed upon his death. His family continues its commitment.

“What we want today is to celebrate positive youth. Mr. Morrow said: there are 5% of children who do negative things and 95% who do positive things, but we never talk about them. We need to talk about these young people,” declared the organization’s spokesperson, Anne Saint-Arnaud.

The event took place at the Michel-Normandin arena at the Center Claude-Robillard, in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, where an atmosphere of excitement reigned on Saturday.

Among the stories that particularly marked the selection committee this year: that of Marwane Lakhrissi, 12 years old, who saved her sister from drowning. The little girl wanted to join him and his brother while they were swimming off a beach in Morocco.

“I lifted it and brought it back to the surface,” he explained, humbly, before getting on his new bike on Saturday.

“I’m so happy,” he exclaimed.

From the look on her smile, we could deduce that this was also the case for Emma Ryan Corbett, 10 years old, sitting comfortably on the saddle of her new machine.

Since her birth, the little girl has raised money for the Montreal Children’s Hospital and the Shriners Hospital, where she was treated for congenital scoliosis, a rare disease that affects about 1 in 10,000 newborns.

Rather than receiving gifts at her party, she instead asks her relatives and friends to donate to these hospitals. “She raised a lot of money,” says her mother, Cari Friedman.

“We thought she would never ride a bike, so to receive a bike today, and by wanting to help children suffering from the same illness as her, is really coming full circle,” she emphasizes. .

In addition to their bike, the young people received a helmet, a lock and a certificate of merit as a souvenir.