Canadian Impact winner: Simple Plan

We’re proud the inaugural Yahoo! Canada Awards not only entertained readers with some of the fun awards like Buzziest Celebrity but also shone a light on some of the lesser known stories. Case in point, the winner of the Canadian Impact award: the charitable foundation operated by Montréal rockers
Simple Plan.

The pop-punk Montréal band told Yahoo! Canada Music that they had “no clue what [they] were getting involved in” when they launched their charity, Simple Plan Foundation, in 2005. The foundation's aim is to help young people in situations of depression and poverty, and suffering from life-threatening illness and the effects of war. The band, who took home the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award at the 2012 Juno Awards, joined efforts with L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal to raise more than $300,000 for the foundation last September. Since then, the foundation has now raised more than $1 million for their causes.

While readers may not have been that familiar with the band or their charitable endeavours, once they found out, the support came in waves.

"Simple Plan, what a wonderful story. We need more bands who have hearts like yours as there are still so many people who are in need of the simple everyday things which most of us take for granted. I, for one, am so proud of you."