Kaya and Zach lived lives filled with love, connection, hope and laughter. Both the eldest of three, they brought these qualities to their close relationships with their younger brothers, their parents, their friends, their extended families and to all the lives they touched.

In 2016, at age 21, full of optimism for their shared future and about to complete their undergraduate degrees at the University of Guelph, Zach and Kaya passed in a tragic kayaking accident on the Credit river. Our families came together in our grief and formed strong bonds of love, surrounded by incredible support from those close to us. We helped each other to navigate our shared focus of attempting to support Kaya and Zach’s brothers in their grief while simultaneously facing our own.  We had to accept that there was no remedy, fix or solution that would bypass either their pain or our own. We came to discover together, in a multitude of small and important ways, how the elements of love, hope, connection and laughter are critical in healing through grief.

We learned that there is no “correct” way to grieve and no fast-track. Grief is messy. Grief is hard, and it is physically exhausting. Resources that may be incredibly helpful to one person are not at all helpful to someone else. Everyone’s experience of loss is as unique as their own relationship with the person who has passed. Slowly, over time we came to respect the unique ways that we each learned to express our emotional experience, give and receive support, and learn about ourselves and each other as we moved forward into a very changed future. We learned that helping to create the conditions for resilience to grow both in ourselves and in Kaya and Zach’s brothers was the most effective form of support. Some of us process our experience verbally, others process through physical movement, others through art.

We discovered that listening to each other and to ourselves as we shared our stories helped us to work through what changed within each of us as our lives changed so drastically after Kaya and Zach’s passing. Discovering our stories for ourselves helped us to gain perspective and hope. Witnessing each other’s stories helped to validate our own experiences, and supporting each other’s chosen paths forward helped encourage growth in each of us.

One year after the accident, our two families created this scholarship in honour Zach and Kaya. We chose to share the message of their lives lived with Love, Hope, Connection and Laughter through recognizing resilience. Our focus on young people and their educational futures is to provide some practical support for the direction they choose to take in their lives after loss. Our hope is that by providing recognition and a platform to share and learn from their stories of resilience, there would be a ripple effect of healing through the community.

Now, 10 years later, we are an exclusively volunteer-run registered Canadian Charity that to date has awarded over $78,500 in post-secondary scholarships to resilient youth across Canada.

After several years operating at the national level, in 2025 we chose to restrict our geographical criteria to Halton Hills residents, due to an overwhelming response. Encouraged by knowing that youth nationwide are recognizing their own resilience, we are focusing our efforts on awarding scholarships within our local community.

Together, we Choose 2 Be Resilient.

To read a recent article in the media about our work, click here