Morguard, the management group for Northgate Shopping Centre says that "BeYou", the company's national marketing campaign to help young women across Canada increase self-esteem, personal growth, and self-worth, has been awarded the 2017 Canadian Community Support Award by the International Council of Shopping Centres ("ICSC") Foundation.
The award recognizes the most outstanding corporate social responsibility and community outreach efforts by shopping centres, their management companies, developers, and retailers.
"The BeYou program at Northghate Shopping Centre has been a huge success and many local girls have and will continue to benefit from it," says a company news release. "Big Brothers Big Sisters North Bay continue to do outreach, fundraising and host activities in Northgate’s BeYou lounge located inside the parking garage."
To commemorate the award, the ICSC Foundation has donated $5,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters, Morguard's charitable partner in the BeYou campaign. With this donation, almost $40,000 was donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters through the 2016 BeYou program. Big Brothers Big Sisters also saw a 34% increase in volunteer inquiries during the campaign.
The BeYou campaign is designed to increase self-esteem and empower young women aged 9 to 16 years across Canada through positive support and mentoring. In the inaugural 2016 campaign, nearly 13,000 young women registered and participated in free interactive workshops, speaker series and other empowering events. The BeYou message was spread across the country as advertising and media outlets garnered over 151 million online impressions. More than 800,000 people were exposed to the BeYou campaign in Morguard's shopping centres across the country.
The 2017 campaign added a downloadable anthem by award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Tara Shannon, multiple screenings of the powerful Dream, Girl documentary on women entrepreneurs and a text to donate program to raise money for Big Brothers Big Sisters.
More information can be found at http://beyougirl.ca/, the digital hub for the BeYou program.
"We are proud that the BeYou program has had a positive impact on young women, encouraging them to celebrate their diversity and uniqueness," said K. Rai Sahi, Chairman and CEO of Morguard. "We appreciate the support of the ICSC Foundation to help Morguard and our partners at Big Brothers Big Sisters provide positive mentoring for young women across Canada."
The ICSC Foundation presented the award to Morguard during a ceremony at the ICSC Canadian Shopping Centre Awards gala in Toronto. Morguard was also awarded Maple Leaf Gold Awards in the Cause Related Marketing and Public Relations categories for the BeYou campaign.
