Vivian Shapiro

Vivian, a retired principal with the Toronto District School Board for over 34 years, is a true servant leader. All her life she has been a philanthropist, acting in roles such as VP of a B’nai Brith chapter, engaging in walks for Breast Cancer, holding personal fundraising events for initiatives for organizations such as Eva’s Place and North York Women’s Shelter. Vivian strongly believes in paying it forward by giving back to those less fortunate than herself.

In addition, for the past 18 years, Vivian has been dedicated to the Herbert H Carnegie Future Aces Foundation in order to realize her dream of guiding youth to build self esteem and leadership skills. She runs workshops in schools across Ontario and, more remarkably, spearheaded a vision of creating a 3-day conference to empower disengaged, troubled or insecure youth who didn’t feel like leaders, to believe in themselves, make a difference in their school and their communities, and make positive life choices. FUTURE: A Conference Empowering Self has successfully been life altering for over 200 Ontario youth and teachers every year for the past 14 years. She created and with a fellow colleague, co-authored a children’s book offered free to schools, called "A Friend Called Attitude" telling the tale of legendary visionary Dr. Herbert H. Carnegie, to help children learn to live with positive attitude.

Vivian's causes and philanthropic endeavours are far reaching. She co-wrote a song "Sharing a Dream" with singer song writer Richard Samuels, meant to cement Israeli Arab relations. This was gifted to The Jerusalem Foundation, an organization that raises money for cultural, community projects in Jerusalem for all residents regardless of ethnic or religious backgrounds. This song tune-accented with a Middle East flavour was produced on a CD with volunteer artists and sung at a massive fundraising dinner by the famous Amadeus choir joining school children from Vivian's school. Each of the 1000 attendees received a free CD that night.

At 72, a mother to 5 and grandmother to 11, her life work continues and inspires all!