As announced earlier, Sebastien and Jeff from Simple Plan attended this year’s annual Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ) conference. At the conference, as the representatives of the Simple Plan Foundation, the boys presented their offer of $20 000 to Association des centres jeunesse du Québec (The Assosiation of Youth Centers in Quebec) in order to help create job opportunities for young people in this area.

“The transition to adulthood is not always easy for young people and can even be downright problematic for some of them. Not only young people in youth centers have experienced a particular path, but when they reach the age of 18, they have to take responsibility almost overnight, be self-reliant and take charge of their adult status. To accomplish this transition, which is especially demanding, they need support and, among others, to be given a ‘first opportunity’. We firmly believe that giving them a first job will facilitate their integration into society and especially contribute to value and to restore confidence in themselves and their future,” said the members of Simple Plan. Here is the link to the full press release [in French only].

You can already check out first two pictures of Jeff and Seb from their appearance at today’s UMQ conference:

From May 9th to 11th, The Union of Quebec Municipalities is hosting the 92nd annual conference with this year’s theme “The elected officials, engaged citizens” and according to the press release, Sebastien Lefebvre and Jeff Stinco from Simple Plan are both among the invitees.

The event will take place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montreal, Canada and Jeff and Sebastien will be present on May 10th from 12am to 2pm at the Luncheon of the delegates.

According to the report, the focus of this year’s session will be on women and young people and Simple Plan should be there to help announce the plan to create jobs for the young people of Quebec’s youth centers.

This exhibition, that is open for free from March 28th till July 31st at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada, allows the visitors to learn more about how powerful music can be – it features four interactive listening and learning stations, each dedicated to a different sustainability theme and featuring many JUNO nominated Canadian artists and information about their own efforts. These artists include mainly Bruce Cockburn, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Neil Young, and Sarah Harmer and additionally many other artists that are involved with charity – including Simple Plan (as you can see on the picture from the exhibit on the left – or its original here).

If you’re interested in the exhibit, make sure to check out more info about it on JUNO’s official website.

A couple weeks ago, four members of Simple Plan (all except for David) attended the Canadian Music Industry & Broadcasting Awards in Toronto, Canada, where the band became the previously-announced recipient of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award for their on-going charitable efforts with the Simple Plan Foundation.

SamaritanMag.com recently published an article about Simple Plan receiving this award which also included bits from their acceptance speech.

You can now check out some of it in the quotes from the article below:

“Thank you to the Slaight family, to Canadian Music Week, for recognizing the work that we’ve done with the Simple Plan Foundation. It’s an incredible honour and we couldn’t be more proud to be here, tonight with all of you to receive this award. Now, how about a little bit of honesty here? When we were kids, we didn’t dream of one day winning the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award or any humanitarian award for that matter — sorry Mr. Slaight — we didn’t have pictures of famous philanthropists on our bedroom walls. Our bedrooms were plastered with Guns N’ Roses, Bad Religion and blink-182 posters. We had a dream of one day being rock stars, up on stage at Rock In Rio in front of 150,000 people, touring the world, winning Junos and Grammys, and then that dream started to come true for us. Our first record came out in 2002 and sold 3 million copies around the world, and then by 2005 our second record was certified four times platinum in Canada. We were selling out our hometown arena for the first time. We were just about to go on tour with Metallica in South Africa, so things were pretty awesome.” – Pierre Bouvier

“And then one my dad picks me up for lunch. So I’m thinking he’s going to be all stoked and tell me how proud he is. I was feeling pretty good about myself, but actually he goes, ‘I think you guys are not doing enough. I think you’re missing out on a big chance to do something here. I think you need to start thinking about your legacy and start to think about how you want to be remembered as a band, and that it’s the perfect time to start your own foundation.’ — not exactly what I was expecting to hear after all the stuff that is happening, all the great success. Basically, it stuck in our heads and we starting thinking about the idea. And we started thinking about all the letters and stories that we heard from our fans — that without music, they wouldn’t be here today, that it helped them to deal with their parents’ divorce, their depression, getting bullied at school, having cancer at 15 years old, that music was all that they had, that music really saved their lives. That’s when it kind of hit us and we realized how lucky and privileged we were. While so many people were struggling, we were living out our dreams. Even more importantly we realized that we had the power to help these people to go through these tough times. My dad was right; we could actually do a lot more…” – Chuck Comeau

Yesterday, February 6th, Sebastien Lefebvre and Jeff Stinco represented Simple Plan in Ottawa at the Diamond Jubilee Medal presentation, where the whole band has been honored with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, which has been awarded this year in person by the Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, to 58 personalities who have „dedicated themselves to service to their fellow citizens, their community and their country.“ Simple Plan have received the medal based on their charitable efforts with Simple Plan Foundation.

According to the press release: „The popular rock group Simple Plan, to which Mr. Lefebvre and Mr. Stinco belong, is concerned about problems facing youth. Through its foundation, the group promotes music as a stimulating way for young people to find their passion and purpose in life, avoid street gangs and stay in school. The medals awarded to Pierre Bouvier, Charles Comeau and David Desrosiers will be presented to them at a later date,“

The medal, which has been created in 2011 to mark the 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth II, is annually presented in the UK, the Carribean countries and in Canada for honorable service in police, prison, and emergency forces, or for outstanding achievement or public service.

You can see pictures from this event in the gallery.

This is Simple Plan’s 4th recent important achievement regarding the Simple Plan Foundation: last year at the Juno Awards they became the youngest recipients of the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award, in January they were announced the Personality of the Year by Radio-Canada and this year in March they will be honored with the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award at the Canadian Music Week.

The government of Quebec has released a statement on their website earlier today in which the Canadian Minister of Culture and Communications, Mr. Maka Kotto, warmly congratulated Simple Plan on receiving the “Personality of the Year” award at the La Presse / Radio Canada ceremony on Sunday.

“The group Simple Plan has enjoyed worldwide success for both their music and for their involvement with youth. Through their humane actions, Simple Plan shows the respect they have for their audience. Simple Plan help to give young people opportunities to succeed in life and through their music they help them to live their passions. The band members know that a single song can represent millions of young people around the world, and I congratulate them,” said Kotto.