We were lucky to catch up with Makenna Ruddy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Makenna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

As someone who grew up with severe anxiety and depression as it runs in my family, school and camp was always very difficult for me. I was always very bullied starting at the age of around 8. I was always bullied about my personality and physical attributes, I was generally overweight as a child and the two words I always heard on a daily basis for 15 years straight was “fat” and “ugly” followed by laughter. Continuously I had unwanted thoughts and feelings and developed severe anxiety and depression.

I had a hard time getting through high school, and in the summer of 2009, I decided I needed to make a lifestyle change and become healthier, physically and emotionally so I started to eat better and exercised every day. A huge passion of mine is that I love making others laugh and smile and I wanted to create this campaign to make the world smile by making it a better place as I was truly inspired by Kind Campaign as I know how much it hurts to be called names, to be threatened and to feel like you are all alone.

In September 2010, I went to Seneca College in Toronto, and graduated in June 2013 with a Social Service Worker Diploma. Within those 3 years I had taken classes such as sociology, interpersonal communications, diversity, awareness & practice, social problems, group dynamics, human development, principles of practice, interviewing, community studies, families in change, case co-ordination, advocacy strategies, supportive counselling, child welfare, community practice, social policies & integrative seminars.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As someone who grew up with severe anxiety and depression as it runs in my family, school and camp was always very difficult for me. I was always very bullied starting at the age of around 8. I was always bullied about my personality and physical attributes, I was generally overweight as a child and the two words I always heard on a daily basis for 15 years straight was “fat” and “ugly” followed by laughter. Continuously I had unwanted thoughts and feelings and developed severe anxiety and depression. I then thought of an interactive way to help others experiencing the same path and created Live Your Dream Campaign.

Live Your Dream Campaign is to help support children, youth, teens, adults and animals internationally dealing with homelessness, illness, mental health issues and abuse. This campaign provides mental health assemblies and donation programs in schools, hospitals and shelters that focus on spreading kindness in communities around the world. This campaign is to create awareness and healing to the negativity and the long lasting effects of bullying and abuse, to help spread mental health awareness of the effects that bullying and abuse creates. We support and advocate for people who suffer from various illnesses, abuse, and mental health concerns and support people with autism and down syndrome, as well as to educate the community on the effects of verbal abuse in order to eliminate the negativity within lives, to accept people for who they are and to realize that everyone is beautiful.

Through this, we have worked and volunteered with various organizations that help others and have helped make an outreach to nearly 10,000 people and have also helped donate services and products for animals in need. We are most proud of our outreach and connection to other organizations and hope to continue to inspire and help others every single day.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Growing up it has been hard to identify any struggles such as anxiety and mental health. As part of this journey, it has required myself to be vulnerable to help others and to speak in front of large crowds. It has been incredibly difficult to get over the anxiety of speaking in front of others which is essential to maintaining an organization and creating success for others. During this, I have been able to put my anxiety aside to help people and to try to combat the feeling of caring what others think of me as it says much more about the other person than it does your own self.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I always make sure to keep in touch with clients with annual and semi-annual emails and connections. I try to send out various monthly to yearly update emails on what each month or year has accomplished to let clients know what we have been up to and what we are still passionate about. I also try to connect with new clients but at the same time staying in touch with older clients has allowed me to connect with newer clients at the same time from different staffing or location changes from schools and shelters. Every Spring and Fall I connect with the same schools and shelters to offer free programs such as anti-bullying assemblies and donation services.    

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yourdreamcampaign.com
• Instagram: @LiveYourDreamCampaign / @makenna.ruddy
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/liveyourdreamcampaign
• Twitter: @liveyourdreamc