Nicholas Page, doesn't have your typical 21-year-old's goals of eking out a little bit more fun while straddling the world of adulthood.
The New Westminster Secondary grad is pretty single-minded about helping others, and is the founder of Canada vs. Cancer, a non-profit he hopes will recruit young people in the fight against cancer.
It was supposed to be a cross-country bicycle trip during the bitter Canadian winter to raise awareness, but it turned out Page and his team were tougher than their support vehicle. After two and a half weeks and almost 1,500 kilometres on winter roads, the team's 1996 Dodge Caravan seized and left the boys at the side of a Quebec highway.
The plan was to visit schools to educate kids on how they can help in the fight against cancer without necessarily having to donate money.
"...Things like blood donations, signing organ donor cards, volunteering, writing letters and making care packages," Page said.
The care packages were destined to go to cancer wards in hospitals across the country. Back on the damp and balmy West Coast, Page has reorganized the campaign to keep things local, after taking care of some unfinished business.
"I will be going to back to Winnipeg and Calgary because we promised both that we would be dropping off care packages and I'd like to follow up on that," he said.
But now he's focusing on going direct to local student associations, to help gather materials for care packages and encourage people, even those with seemingly nothing to give, to help out.
"These kids in hospital need books, arts and crafts supplies, crayons, toys. The parents could use some novels or magazines," he said. "Follow our progress. Donate blood - that's a big one that people don't often think of. People going through chemo or surgery to remove tumors (need it)."
Perhaps even more profound than Page's mission is what's driving him to do it. Unlike many who become active in the fight against cancer, Page and his loved ones have never been touched by the disease. Instead, he took up the cause to prove a larger point - that anyone, regardless of circumstance, is able to help make the world a better place.
Page is open about the fact that he grew up disadvantaged in New Westminster.
"We were struggling meal-to-meal and you come down here and you see 16-year-olds with Porsches and Lamborghinis," he said from his current Vancouver apartment. "You look back at the streets of New West or Surrey and you see kids struggling. It seems like we've lost our way."
Page did not accept coming from a modest background means having to settle on having modest plans, so he started Canada vs. Cancer. If he could cycle across Canada (or from Newfoundland to Quebec) or donate his time and energy to brighten the lives of people with cancer, anyone could.
"I really want to show people that anyone can do anything, and that dream of a perfect world, where everyone's happy and healthy and educated and there's no poverty - we can totally have that. We just have to make a few sacrifices along the way," he said.
"I wanted to show that an everyday kid who's just a typical Canadian is willing to go out and help people for the sake of helping people - just because it's the right thing to do."
Page's Canada vs. Cancer website can be found at www.canadavscancer.ca.
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