BLAZE: Boys Leadership Program
BLAZE: Brothers Leading Authentically with Zelous Esteem - is a Monday after-school program for boys in Grades 3–6.
Each session reads the group’s energy and responds — sometimes staying in for workshops, conversations, creative play, and team-building; sometimes venturing outdoors for movement, adventure, and leadership challenges in Squamish’s wild backyard. Boys have a say in how their time is spent, because at BLAZE, their voice matters from day one.
Topics include: emotional intelligence, healthy friendships, conflict resolution, self-esteem, peer pressure, communication, leadership, and identity — all explored through activities, discussions, and shared experiences that make learning feel like living.
This is where boys focus on becoming the men they’re meant to be.
Level 1 & 2: Grades 3-4 & 5-6, Mondays
3:30-5:30pm
Fall Term: Sept. 14th - Dec. 14th (12 weeks)
$325
*Small snack provided at the beginning of each session
After-school pickup option available*
OUR WHY
There is a boy in your life right now who is carrying more than you know. He’s been told to toughen up. He’s been told not to cry. He’s been told that strength means staying quiet, staying hard, never asking for help. He’s spent six hours sitting in a classroom, keeping it together — and by 3:30pm, he has nowhere to put all of it. The frustration, the feelings, the big messy beautiful energy that is just… HIM. BLAZE was built for that boy. We live in a world that is actively failing our sons. Not because people don’t love them — but because nobody gave them a space where being emotionally honest, kind, and courageous was celebrated. A space where saying “I’m struggling” is met with brotherhood, not silence. A space where boys learn that REAL strength is knowing when to ask for help, that REAL toughness means standing up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves, and that REAL power is knowing who you are and refusing to shrink for anyone. That space didn’t exist in Squamish — until now. BLAZE — Brothers Leading Authentically with Zealous Esteem — is more than an after-school program. It is a mission. Every Monday afternoon, a group of boys in Grades 3–6 gathers at The Clubhouse to be seen, heard, and challenged in the best possible way. Some days they stay inside — deep in conversation, building something together, learning to name what they feel and communicate without their fists. Other days they head out into Squamish’s wild backyard, moving their bodies, taking up space, and doing what boys were made to do. Every single session, they are guided toward the kind of men we desperately need more of in this world: men who are emotionally intelligent, fiercely loyal, and genuinely proud of who they’re becoming. This is where that journey begins. Vanessa Doak founded Healthy Hearts, Healthy Minds on one unwavering belief: that young people deserve spaces where their whole selves — their hearts AND their minds — are treated as equally important. For over a decade, HHHM has been building programs that prove emotional wellness and personal development are not extras. They are the foundation of everything. Leadership programs. Day camps. Artistic workshops. Entrepreneurship programs. Every single one of them is built on the same core understanding: when you help young people know themselves, trust themselves, and believe in themselves, everything else becomes possible. BLAZE is the natural expansion of that mission into the lives of boys. For too long, the work of emotional literacy and community-building in youth programming has been directed primarily at girls. BLAZE says: our boys need this too. Our boys deserve this too. And our community is stronger when every young person in it — regardless of gender — grows up knowing their feelings are valid, their voice matters, and they are capable of becoming something extraordinary. Brotherhood is wellness. Brotherhood is health. Brotherhood is what BLAZE builds — one honest Monday at a time.
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BLAZE VALUES
Five Principles That Light the Way 🔥 Spark — Real Strength Starts on the Inside. True strength isn’t about how tough you look — it’s about how honest you’re willing to be. The bravest thing a boy can do is feel something fully and say so out loud. At BLAZE, emotional intelligence isn’t a soft skill. It’s the whole point. We celebrate the boys who are willing to go first. 🔥 Flame — A Brotherhood Protects Its Own. You don’t leave someone behind. Not in the bush, not in the hallways, not when the group is watching. Brotherhood is a choice you make every single day — to show up, to speak up, and to have someone’s back even when it costs you something. The bonds built at BLAZE are built to last. 🔥 Torch — Leaders Carry the Light Forward. A leader doesn’t wait to be the biggest or the oldest or the loudest in the room. A leader notices what needs doing and does it. He lifts others, creates safety, and understands that his words and actions leave a mark on the people around him. At BLAZE, every boy gets the chance to lead — and to learn what that actually means. 🔥 Ember — Keep Going, Even When It’s Hard. Resilience is not “never breaking.” Resilience is knowing how to come back. When things feel impossible — when you lose, when you’re embarrassed, when you’re struggling — an ember keeps glowing. BLAZE teaches boys that asking for help is how you stay lit, not how you go out. 🔥 Blaze — Choose the Trail You Walk. Every day, you are choosing who you’re becoming. The spaces you spend time in, the friends you keep, the way you treat people when no one is watching — it all adds up to the man you’ll be. At BLAZE, boys learn to make those choices deliberately, with self-awareness and pride. You are the author of your own trail.
PROGRAM LEVELS
What Boys Experience as They Grow: The Sparks — Grades 3 & 4 New to the fire. Learning to feel it. Sparks are right at the edge of something big — they’re old enough to have opinions, feel things deeply, and start to notice how their actions land on others, but young enough that these lessons can shape everything. This is where the foundation gets built. At this level, BLAZE sessions are high-energy, grounded, and playful. Sparks spend time learning to name their emotions without shame, discovering what it feels like to be truly seen by a group of peers. They play games that build trust, engage in hands-on activities and crafts that open up conversation, and venture outside with their crew to move their bodies and connect with Squamish’s natural world. Topics at this level include: what friendship really means, how to handle conflict without using your hands, what makes a good leader, self-confidence, and how to ask for help. By the time a Spark completes his first session, he knows that BLAZE is a place where he belongs — and where the best version of himself is always welcome. The Torchbearers — Grades 5 & 6 Carrying the light. Becoming the example. Torchbearers are at a pivotal moment. Middle school is approaching. Social pressure is real. The temptation to perform a version of themselves that isn’t quite true is at an all-time high — and the boys who have a brotherhood to come back to every Monday are the ones who make it through with their integrity intact. At this level, BLAZE goes deeper. Torchbearers take on more challenging discussions — identity, peer pressure, what it means to stand up when everyone else is sitting down, how to be a leader when leadership isn’t glamorous. They take on more responsibility within the group, are given opportunities to mentor younger Sparks, and begin to articulate their own values out loud. Outdoor adventures become more ambitious. Conversations become more honest. The brotherhood becomes more intentional. By the time a Torchbearer completes his BLAZE journey, he has something rare: a clear sense of who he is, a group of boys who know him at his best, and the tools to navigate whatever comes next.
WHAT A BLAZE SESSION LOOKS LIKE
It’s 3:28pm on a Monday and the boys start arriving at The Clubhouse in twos and threes — backpacks still on, energy crackling after a full day of school. They’re loud, a little chaotic, and completely alive.
The first thing we do is check the room.
Not literally — not a formal checklist. Just: what’s the energy today? Is the group buzzing and ready to move? Or does someone look like they’re carrying something heavy? A good BLAZE facilitator knows the difference between boys who need to run it out in the fresh Squamish air and boys who need five quiet minutes and a snack before they can be present.
So we read the room, and then — here’s the revolutionary part — we let the group have a say.
Do we stay in? Head outside? What does the group need today?
Because one of the core lessons of BLAZE is that your voice matters. Learning to advocate for yourself, to say “actually, I need something different today” — that’s not a small thing. That’s the beginning of a lifelong skill.
If the energy is HIGH, we head outside. Squamish is our backyard and it is spectacular — we move through it with intention. Team challenges in the trees. Leadership games on the trail. Active initiatives that require cooperation, communication, and the kind of trust you can only build when you’re working toward something together in the wild. Boys run, they climb, they navigate, they compete and cooperate — and somewhere in the middle of all that movement, the real conversations start to happen. They always do.
If the energy calls for something deeper, we stay in The Clubhouse. Creative play that opens up dialogue. Workshops on identity, friendship, and conflict. Games that reveal who you are under pressure and celebrate what you discover. Honest conversations in a circle where every voice is equally weighted and nothing said here leaves these walls without permission.
And then — the moment that every BLAZE facilitator quietly lives for.
A boy says something brave.
Maybe he admits he’s been struggling with a friendship. Maybe he says “I don’t actually know how to handle that” when everyone else is pretending they do. Maybe he shares something he’s never said out loud before.
And the brotherhood holds him.
Not with pity. Not with awkward silence. With presence. With recognition. With the nod that says: yeah, me too. And you’re good.
That moment is why BLAZE exists.
It happens every single week. And every time it does, another boy learns that honesty is safe here — and starts practicing it everywhere else.
WHO BLAZE IS FOR
FOR THE BOYS:
BLAZE is for you if....
You are a boy who loves to move, to explore, to compete, to create — and who sometimes has feelings that feel too big for regular places.
BLAZE is where those feelings are welcome.
You are a boy who has been told to “just ignore it” when something hurt you — and you’re tired of ignoring things.
BLAZE is where you learn a better way.
You are a boy with a best friend who you’d do anything for — and you want to learn how to be the kind of friend who actually shows up.
BLAZE builds that brotherhood.
You are a boy who wants to be someone people can count on, someone who stands up for others, someone who is proud of who he is — even when it’s hard.
BLAZE is where that person gets built.
You don’t have to already be a leader. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to show up. That’s it. We’ll handle the rest.
BLAZE is for boys who want to become MEN worth becoming.
FOR THE PARENTS:
BLAZE is for your son if.....
You are raising a boy in a world that keeps sending him confusing messages about what it means to be strong — and you want someone in his corner reinforcing the right ones.
You are watching your son shut down emotionally as he gets older, building walls instead of bridges — and you want him to have a space where openness is modelled and rewarded.
You are worried about what happens when the social pressure of middle school hits — and you want him walking into that season with a Brotherhood that knows who he really is.
You want your son to grow up knowing how to communicate when he’s upset instead of acting out. Knowing how to be a loyal, loving friend. Knowing that asking for help is not weakness — it is wisdom.
You want him to look back someday and say: that program is part of who I became.
BLAZE is for parents who are raising sons with intention — and who refuse to hand them over to a world that tells them not to feel.
READY TO JOIN THE BROTHERHOOD??