Lauren Pires

As part of our Asian Heritage Month activities at Clarkson Secondary School this past May, Lauren was invited to speak to staff and students as part of our "Amplifying Asian Narratives" Guest Speaker series. She shared pieces of her own story, along with her lived experiences with overcoming adversity and embracing joy; emphasizing the significance of owning who you are and finding the "yay" in all of life's circumstances. Through her authentic storytelling, the audience really appreciated her sincerity, relevance, vulnerability, and resilience in overcoming the challenges that she had experience and continues to experience while navigating through living with Central Core Disease and finding balance in her regular day-to-day lifestyle. She was inspiring, innovative, and diverse with her delivery, and her desire to genuinely connect with the crowd was evident - which is essential for speaking to an audience of teens and educators. Lauren is such a versatile communicator and an amazing human being in general - we look forward to having her speak to our school community again in the future. Thank you for taking time to inspire and encourage us, Lauren - I hope you continue to share your light with others because so many need to hear your story and be encouraged to seek out their "yay" in life.

I had the opportunity to work with Lauren this year at our Annual Last Lecture event. Lauren attended as our Alum Speaker. She delivered a motivating and impactful speech to the Class of 2024. Post event, she stayed to mix and mingle with graduating students to share her own personal experience at the University of Guelph-Humber. Working with Lauren was seamless and fun. She followed the guidelines of what was requested of her and put deep thought into what she wanted to say. This made it easy for us to approve her speech ahead of the timelines laid out. Lauren is a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend her for your next motivational engagement!