9 year old Ryan Hreljac has been doing volunteer and fundraising work since he was 6

9 year old Ryan Hreljac has been doing volunteer and fundraising work since he was 6. Most recently he worked with Free the Children to deliver school kits to Uganda(this past summer 2000) on behalf of Free the Children and his local school Holy Cross, located in Kemptville Ontario (near Ottawa).

I thought that you might be interested in Ryan's story.

Ryan, as I mentioned, began his fundraising activities at the age of 6. In the past three years he has worked with three organizations (WaterCan, Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief, and Free the Children) to raise over $70,000 for clean water and school related projects in Africa. I have included a copy of Ryan's bio and a list of some of the websites (below) which feature Ryan's fundraising work.

Ryan has spoken to more than 8,000 students in the past three years.

He was selected as a finalist last fall in the 2000 YTV Achievement Awards (UNICEF Category).

He attended the Millennium Dreamers Global Conference this past May at Disney World in Florida and this past summer 2000 he spent almost two weeks in Africa visiting his well (Ryan's well) and drilling rig in the northern Apac District of Uganda. RYAN'S SPEECH

Ryan appeared on a new one-hour television show called The Gathering Place, hosted by Graham Kerr, formerly The Galloping Gourmet. The taping of the show took place in Toronto on November 8, 1999.

Ryan was a guest speaker in April of 2000 with the "Volunteering Through Time", a travelling exhibit sponsored by Volunteer Canada, which is making its way across Canada. This project celebrates both the history and future of Canadian volunteering and profiles the diverse make-up of Canada's 7.5 million volunteers.

"Reader's Digest"(one journalist and one photographer) accompanied Ryan and his family on an African journey and plans to do a cover story on Ryan in their December issue (international).

An independent producer and film crew also accompanied them on their trip to Uganda and are in the process of completing a one hour documentary on the fundraising work that Ryan has done since he began this work at the age of 6.

Ryan has been featured in newspapers, in magazines(OWL, Macleans), on television and on the radio over the past few years. Most recently, he was featured for a second time in Macleans in the cover story entitled "Canadians Who Inspired the World" -Sept. 4th issue. MACLEAN'S STORY

RYAN’S WELL WEBSITES:

http://www.macleans.ca/pub-doc/2000/09/04/Cover/39192.shtml

http://www.ytv.com/top.asp?section=main&path=yaa/splash.asp

http://www.owl.on.ca/food/ryan.htm

http://watercan.com/note_from_ryan.htm

http://www.parl.gc.ca/36/1/parlbus/chambus/house/debates/146_1998-10-30/han146_1055-e.htm

http://www.homepages.go.com/homepages/m/i/l/millenniumdreamerscda/ONTARIO8-11.html

http://www.thecitizen.com/columnists/brown/000413/3925101.html

http://voices4children.org/bulletin/Issue_15.htm

http://www.strategicprofitsinc.com/wn/watercan/ryan.html

http://www.sjss.cornwall.on.ca/chaplaincy.html