By Takara Small

If she wanted them to, Camille Gordon’s words could move mountains.

The 18-year-old high school student doesn’t sound like your typical teenager. Instead of boys and celebrity gossip, her conversation is peppered with inspirational phrases like “nothing worth doing is easy” and talk of volunteer work that will see her well into old age. She also tends to shy away from self-praise. “I was always so busy during school that I missed out on a lot of social events,” she says. “I don’t want to blow off my friends, but helping others is obviously more important.”

The Brampton, Ontario native is an active volunteer in her community and has amassed dozens of accolades for her work. But Gordon doesn’t believe the word ‘activist’ — which has been heaped on her for volunteer work such as sandwich runs for the homeless — is best suited to describe her. “You have to sacrifice a lot if you’re going to be an activist,” she says. “I don’t feel like I’ve sacrificed a lot. Time, yeah, but that’s it. In the future, I’d like to be an activist. But right now, I don’t think I’ve lived up to that name.”

If Gordon isn’t an activist yet, her newest endeavour has her well on her way to becoming one. Gordon, along with fellow students from St. Augustine Secondary School, created a series of small-sized canvases emblazoned with artwork that were sold to raise money for charity and captured the attention of many admirers, including the media. The success that Gordon is experiencing did not come as a shock to her cousin Allison England. “I wasn’t surprised,” England says. “She cares more about everything else than she does about herself. As long as I can remember, she’s been doing inter community work.”

The inspiration behind her recent attention-grabbing idea started six months ago when Gordon applied for a government grant called SpeakUp. She used her award money to make the inspirational paintings that raised twice the amount of the initial grant. “I always have new ideas,” she says. “It’s great that the government provides ways for youth to get involved and help the community. I will be applying for more grants.”

It was Gordon’s painting of a woman rowing into obscurity away from an abusive situation, with baby in tow, that recieved the most attention. The piece will be sold to help Gordon pay her tuition costs at the Ontario College of Art & Design.

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