Interesting fact: Leah is an advanced scuba diver.
A passionate motivational speaker, Leah Ruinsky has spent the past year travelling Ontario, speaking to students about the true meaning of philanthropy with the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative. While she was at it, she helped to distribute one million dollars to local, grassroots charities from across the province.
Leah's background in youth empowerment begins with her position as a teaching assistant and mentor during her high school years. She continued that work at post-secondary school when she moved on to pursue a B.A. in psychology at the University of Western Ontario.
Leah was chosen as a member of the school's Soph Team, a position in which she acted as a resource and friend to hundreds of her fellow students, while leading seminars on youth development and empowerment. Her duties as a Soph also included facilitating O-Week, a yearly event that helped first-year student's transition smoothly into university life. Leah has also been involved with the Yellow Brick House, Amnesty International and various Shinerama events.
After graduating from university, a brief trip to Europe left Leah hungrier than ever for the taste of travel. She set off soon thereafter to explore India and Southeast Asia. Along her travels, she has ridden camels through the desert and elephants through the jungle, was an extra in a Bollywood film, got certified as an advanced scuba diver, climbed the highest peak in Southeast Asia, lived on a houseboat in the Keralan backwaters and looked into the smoking crater of an active volcano.
Leah's interests include dance (think Fame ), reading everything she can get her hands on, spending quality time with her family, developing her photography skills and enjoying " big boy" fluffy duvet covers. During life's twists and turns, she draws comfort from the words of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez who stated, " Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."