Forty hours at day camp, fifteen hours at Subway, five hours of graphic design contracts… a young person from Montreal’s South Shore rolled up his sleeves last summer to raise just over $10,000 to help his family and fund their projects .
“I’m doing this to help my mom so she doesn’t have to pay a mortgage anymore,” Callum O’Connor, 21, who worked three jobs last summer to raise money to help his family, told the Journal to make ends meet.
“My mother works long hours. We don’t have a house. We live in a condo. She’s still paying for it. “I don’t want her to have to pay until she’s 70 because the costs keep rising,” says the young man.
Last Saturday, Le Journal reported that, according to Statistics Canada, about a million workers – or 5.4% of them – have multiple jobs.
Although this share has changed little over the past year, we see that this choice is increasingly being forced by economic constraints.
That was what Callum O’Connor had to do, acting as head of the Longmobile day camp at Mont-Saint-Hilaire in addition to preparing weekend subs at the Brossard subway and carrying out various jobs on the side.
“I am disciplined. When I do something, I do it with a smile, just like my parents taught me,” says the graphic design student at Dawson College.
“It was tiring. I had no energy left. I didn’t go out much anymore. I worked and slept, but honestly I always had a smile. I knew I was doing it for the right reasons,” he adds.
Motivated entrepreneur
In addition to the day camp and Subway, Callum O’Connor managed to win some great design, photography and graphics contracts with his company Kales Universe.
“I do graphic design, logos, clothing, animation. I have a lot of customers who are local artists and rappers,” he explains.
He also worked with the young beverage company Ball-O-Shot and another multimedia company, AIFAL, which he co-founded with entrepreneur Ethan Savard.
“We are a collective of Montreal and American artists. We are DJs, rappers, YouTubers. We do different things. We are starting a new festival,” he concludes.
-In collaboration with Philippe Langlois
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