Silas Young Embraces the North

Wednesday, February 15, 2023 / Online

Silas Young was a third-year commerce student when the COVID pandemic was at its darkest. 

The crisis spurred him to ease people’s loneliness and isolation by founding a non-profit called ASSIST (Assisting International Students Together) so that he could provide meals and a sense of community for international students on Lakehead’s Thunder Bay campus.

Silas (right) lends a hand at the 2021 Welcome Home Dinner for Lakehead international students.

 

 

Pictured left:  Silas (on right) lends a hand at the 2021 Welcome Home Dinner for Lakehead international students.

 

In December 2022, ASSIST was able to host a sit-down dinner for students at the Chanterelle restaurant. “Yutong Liu, a Master of Science in Kinesiology student at Lakehead has helped me run the dinner every year,” Silas explains. “She was essential to its success this year.”

 

Pictured right:  In December 2022, ASSIST was able to host a sit-down dinner for students at the Chanterelle restaurant. “Yutong Liu, a Master of Science in Kinesiology student at Lakehead has helped me run the dinner every year,” Silas explains. “She was essential to its success this year.”

 

“The main thing we do is host a welcome home holiday dinner at the end of the fall term—most international students can’t afford to go home for the holidays, and they’re missing the love and support of their families,” he says. 

Juggling volunteer work and schoolwork comes easily to Silas. It’s the reason he was given the 2022 Robert Poulin Award for outstanding citizenship—an honour presented annually to a full-time Lakehead student. He also received the 2022 Ingenuity Award from Lakehead’s business incubator, Ingenuity, which mentors Lakehead students as they take their start-up ideas from concept to launch.

“As a young person, volunteer work is the best way to get out in the community and find responsibilities that enable you learn,” says Silas, who now serves on the Ingenuity board.

Silas grew up in a small town in Newfoundland, except for his kindergarten year when his family lived in Thunder Bay. Silas’s happy memories of Northwestern Ontario later convinced him to apply to Lakehead for his university studies.

Pictured left:  Silas grew up in a small town in Newfoundland, except for his kindergarten year when his family lived in Thunder Bay. Silas’s happy memories of Northwestern Ontario later convinced him to apply to Lakehead for his university studies.

Soon after arriving in Thunder Bay from Newfoundland, Silas connected with business professor Dr. Mike Dohan who introduced him to Enactus Lakehead, the local chapter of an international entrepreneurship club that uses business as a catalyst for positive social and environmental change.

“That started everything,” Silas says.

He arrived at a crucial point in the club’s history according to Alyson MacKay, the manager of Ingenuity.

“Over the years, the Enactus club had lost some of its steam, but Silas revived it thanks to his strong leadership skills.”

When he became club president in his second year, Silas increased membership numbers by recruiting students from different faculties—like nursing and the sciences—instead of exclusively from the business faculty. He also helped a club member secure Lakehead’s first Enactus Canada accelerator grant.

In addition, Silas launched a financial literacy workshop series for Indigenous students called Getting Financially Lit because, he says, “financial literacy gives you the potential to do what you want to do, and Indigenous youth face more obstacles than non-Indigenous youth.”

“Some strides are being made to improve financial literacy in Canada, but for marginalized and at-risk groups, we’re still far off,” Silas adds.

The Getting Financially Lit project placed second both regionally and nationally in the annual Enactus competition.

“We beat the University of Toronto team even though we only had 10 team members and they had 200.”

Silas’s financial literacy work hasn’t focused solely on the young. He and Chris Morrill, who is currently a Master of Science in Management student at Lakehead, started online financial literacy training for Canadians over the age of 65.

Since graduating from Lakehead in 2022, Silas has been working as a business and writing instructor at Oshki-Pimache-O-Win (Oshki)—an Indigenous institute committed to increasing postsecondary education completion rates for Nishnawbe Aski Nation people and other learners.

“Oshki is like an extended family, which is especially important for students coming from remote communities,” Silas explains.

He’s also continuing to pursue his educational goals—Silas spends evenings and weekends studying for the Immigration and Citizenship Law Graduate Diploma offered by Queen’s University.

“It’s a one-year online program that will allow me to become a licensed immigration consultant. Once I’m licensed, I plan to start an immigration consulting business.”

In the meantime, Silas enjoys volunteering for local events and participating in the St. John’s Ambulance therapy dog program with his dog Piper.

“It’s fantastic. We go to the Lakehead library and the Student Wellness Centre and wander around campus so that students can cuddle Piper.”