MONTREAL- Michelle Vanderzon got a chance to help out in Rwanda and ever since she's been hooked on helping those less fortunate.
"Getting to see what's going on in the world opened my eyes," said the 16-year-old student at Heritage Regional High School in St. Hubert, on the South Shore. "It was like this seed was growing in me and it was blossoming and I just wanted to do more and more."
But some might dispute that storyline. Apparently her passion to help was already alive before that.
"She came into the office and did a presentation," says Jeremie Olivier of Word Vision. "It really gets us moving."
Vanderzon has since become an unstoppable force for helping people in bad situations, raising $7,000 for Haiti as well as money for disaster-stricken Japan.
"She's definitely a shameless idealist because she inspires youth around her, says her teacher Payal Grover.
Vanderzon, who has the title of Quebec Youth Ambassador for World Vision, says that her philanthropic travels to Africa and India will hopefully help her full-time job one day as a lawyer specializing in human rights.
"I feel like it's my duty to use my voice and my experience to help those that I've met," she says. "I'm privileged to have a voice."
