Philippe Lacroix
Séminaire Saint-François

“By getting involved in a dynamic and conscientious way, you can motivate people, get them to reflect on things and interest them in working with you.” Philippe Lacroix, a Secondary 4 student at Séminaire Saint-François (SSF), makes this assertion with full knowledge of the facts. Event hosting, theatre, the student newspaper, awareness-raising activities, it is for the most part through the arts that the 15 year old spreads his message, striving each and every time to pass on his passion to the younger students who will soon be taking his place.

A modest type of person who prefers team success to personal success, Philippe Lacroix shows exceptional artistic maturity for someone his age and quickly came to understand the principle that alone you can go faster, but as a group you can go farther. Danielle Béland, a teacher at SSF, readily asserts: “Philippe is a cultural ambassador, an extremely rare phenomenon at his age. He teaches and passes on to others everything he learns.”

According to Mrs. Béland, Philippe is not content with just excelling on stage in the roles he plays with accuracy and sensitivity as a member of the Esclaffe theatre company. He also enables Cycle 1 students to discover their passion for the performing arts thanks to his sound advice as stage director. This is also the case when he hosts the year-end cultural gala. Instead of dominating the evening in his role as emcee, he prefers to surround himself with colleagues and friends, to form a team of youngsters of all ages and thus allow them to benefit from his experience and his aplomb as a means of training the new guard.

“What distinguishes him and sets him apart,” she quickly goes on to say “is not so much the quality of his actions but rather the sustained quality of his contribution to student life at our school. You can entrust him with any mission: not only will he carry it off with brio, he will go beyond all your expectations simply because, when he embarks on an adventure, he gives his utmost with both spirit and dedication.”

This was the case in fact last fall when Philippe and five of his friends wanted to set up a project as part of the school’s anti-bullying program. To do so, the group decided to stage Le soldat, a play written by a former SSF student that draws a parallel between a soldier entering the fray and a young student who must contend with being bullied every day at school. They presented the play to all Secondary 1 and 2 students as well as a hundred or so other people during a special presentation. “We did everything ourselves, from the stage production to acting out all the roles. I even had to tape certain scenes on video because there weren’t enough of us to play all the roles. I’m always inclined to take on extra responsibilities and get fully involved,” the young man explains, adding that, from an artistic standpoint, Patrick Huard’s career is a great source of inspiration.

This year, as well as playing the part of Lysander in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contributing to the smooth running of the Secondaire en spectacle event and co-hosting the cultural gala, in which he will also perform in two singing numbers as well as writing the scripts and presenting six sketches on a 1960s’ theme, Philippe hosts a lunch-hour theatre activity for Cycle 1 students twice a week.

Moreover, the student has been approached by the person in charge of the drug-abuse program at SSF about creating and producing, with the help of three friends, video capsules that will be posted on the school’s website. This is yet another way of transmitting important societal values.

And to end the year with a flourish, Philippe will be hosting the year-end awards ceremony. “Projects and cultural events have become a true passion. Eventually, I hope to be able turn my involvement into a profession and thus continue having fun while creating and, more importantly, collaborating and working with interesting people who are just as enthusiastic as I am,” concludes the finalist in the Committed Student category.

Philippe Lacroix
Séminaire Saint-François