Team 20s - Zahra Zahed Zahra is the founder and CEO of Will2Well, which is an international platform offering four main wellness services: personal training, group fitness classes, life coaching, and nutrition coaching. The organization’s mission is to educate, motivate, and empower individuals to look and feel better.  Zahra is a Master Certified Life Coach, Body Transformation Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Group Fitness Instructor, and a former professional kickboxer. She holds a diploma in fitness and health from Centennial College and a degree in kinesiology from the University of Guelph-Humber.  She is also the 2019 recipient of the Natalie Novak Youth Award, which honours those who “have shown courage, determination and willingness to be a role model for their peers”, and she sits on the Board of Directors for the Jane Alliance Neighbourhood Services, a community-based charity in Toronto. Originally from Afghanistan, Zahra experienced a life-changing personal transformation—she overcame the challenges she faced as an unhoused, pregnant, newly-arrived immigrant in 2017 to become the university graduate, single mother, and successful CEO that she is today.  Zahra hopes to unlock the limitless potential in others so that they can begin their own transformative journeys.   Through Will2Well and her various coaching initiatives, Zahra is her clients’ partner, educator, and sounding board. She works to help people achieve their goals, whether they be leading a simpler life, increasing prosperity, having healthier relationships, or finding happiness, fulfillment, and joy.  Her approach is holistic, as she understands the importance of a healthy body, mind, and spirit in overall transformation. Website Instagram

Team 30s - samantha bitty (she/her) is Canada’s premier sexual health and consent education drag queen. A long-time community-based practitioner, anti-oppression anti-racism facilitator, public speaker, harm reductionist, media personality, educator, coach, advocate and award winning web show host.  A quintuple fire sign, daily napper, sexy clown, survivor, sober person, pleasure-seeker, forever learner, and a first generation immigrant/settler of Afro-Caribbean and Northern European descent, samantha’s life work centralizes addressing injustice, erasure, and limiting beliefs. Miss. bitty is the host of SEXY SEXUAL HEALTH TRIVIA, as well as many other expansive, intersectional, and comprehensive sexual health and consent interventions that deploy games, humour, art and media to push the boundaries of propriety and facilitate entry into challenging conversations. She is known for creating sites of transformation grounded in accessibility, relationality, liberation and joy that prioritize pleasure, racial and disability justice, survivors of gender-based violence, sex positivity, and affirmation of gender and sexuality diversity. Instagram Website

Team 40s - Sinéad Whelehan Sinéad is a deeply intuitive, profoundly deaf woman, a longtime educator and advocate, a writer, a healer, and a self-described weirdo. As a result of her own childhood neglect, she started working with children when she was 11 years old and has never stopped, bringing her passion for empowering children and youth into a wide variety of roles that allowed her to mentor, guide, heal and teach extensively over the past 30-plus years.  In particular, she has had a career of almost 20 years, teaching students with special needs at the elementary and secondary levels.  Starting in high school, Sinéad has been a longtime advocate in the social justice and disability communities.  She co-created the accessible theatre program at Young People’s Theatre, started and ran the Gender and Sexuality Alliance at the high school where she taught for 15 years, and has spoken on numerous panels at Universities and Colleges about the lived and educational experiences of students and adults with disabilities.  She has traveled around the world, lived in Japan and England, worked as a massage therapist and an intuitive body healer, and is a cult survivor.  She believes that we belong to the Universe, not just to planet Earth, and she sees the human journey as a process of learning, healing and evolving (and is annoyingly die-hard about it).

Team 50s - Sophia 'SoJay' Jackson Sophia's commitment to community engagement has manifested in multifaceted and impactful ways. As an accomplished Child and Youth Care worker, she has dedicated years to nurturing and supporting the development of young individuals within diverse settings, including group homes, custody-detention-treatment facilities, private schools, and hospitals.  Sophia's intro into the political arena demonstrated her remarkable drive and civic responsibility during the 2022 municipal elections in Brampton, where she embarked on an impressive journey as a PDSB Trustee candidate. Her contributions further extended to her selection as a distinguished committee member for the Anti-Racism Advisory Committee (ARAC), where she collaboratively interfaces with the Peel Police, Peel Police Services Board and the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). The essence of Sophia's journey is woven into her artistic pursuits, as demonstrated by her musical endeavors and the creation of Soulful Colour affirmation colouring books with cultural diversity. Her music, colouring books, financial acumen, and dedication to mental well-being synergize seamlessly within this creative venture, serving as a testament to her dedication and passion. Books

Team 60s - Debbie Alger is Birch Babe’s founder and lead Skincare Formulator. Debbie has been a serial entrepreneur, business owner, health enthusiast and nature lover. From interior decorator, fitness instructor, starting a successful coffee shop franchise, to environmental mapping Debbie’s passion for creating and connecting people to health and our planet is endless. A nature enthusiast, Debbie founded Birch Babe after a 6 months solo hike from Patagonia to Chile 6 years ago. It was on this hike where Debbie’s passion for the environment deepened and led her to come home, quit her job, move to the cottage and start making skin, hair and body products that were better for the health of our bodies and the planet. Debbie has a diploma in Organic Skincare Formulation and an Advanced Diploma in Organic Cosmetic Science. Both with Formula Botanica. In addition to this Debbie has spent years deep in repetitive discovery of exploring science and perfecting formulations from the perfect sourdough to the optimal regenerating skincare. It’s Debbie’s wide knowledge of ingredients, and the science behind formulations rooted in nature that have made Birch Babe products such a success and loved by many across the globe. Instagram Shop Facebook YouTube TikTok Pinterest

Team 70s - Valary Cook is a Dramatic Arts specialist who taught Drama and English in Toronto for several decades, a career which afforded her the opportunity to direct musicals ,original scripts and community outreach performances and guide students through Shakespeare on stage and as literature. It also allowed her to travel with her students in the finals of the Sears Drama Festival and to Oxford to teach Ontario students senior English.
  Since retiring, she volunteers at many of Toronto’s vibrant theatres from Soulpepper to the Coal Mine , having won a “ Harold” ( award) for volunteering and seeing amazing shows. She keeps her hand in by directing in the active community theatres throughout the city: Innocence Lost ( about Steven Truscott, the youngest person sentenced to death in Canada) , The Fighting Days ( about Nellie McClung and women’s suffrage in Canada), Late Company ( about bullying of a gay teen..for which she won an award from ActCo as best director) and, coming up, The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble (/about a family coping with early Alzheimer’s). All of these plays reflect her belief that theatre is at its most important when it “ holds a mirror up to nature” and challenges the audience to feel and to think.. even better when the playwright is Canadian.