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WE Day Draws Big Names With Inspiring Stories For Young Minnesotans

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Thousands of teenagers from 500 schools around Minnesota are winding down after a day of pure excitement.

For the third year, Minnesota hosted WE Day, a star-studded event honoring students who volunteer.

Henry Winkler, who now writes children's novels addressed the packed house at the Xcel Center telling, kids what power they have within. He joined celebrities like Ciara, Darren Criss and Chelsea Clinton for the big celebration at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Students had to earn their way into WE Day by volunteering in all sorts of ways. Last year, nearly 200,000 Minnesota youth volunteered to help kids in hospitals, to help kids overseas who need water, and much more.

On Tuesday, they were rewarded and inspired.

It was singer Ciara's second time in Minnesota.

"When my album first came out, I performed at the big mall here," she told WCCO.

Now, she's back to inspire her younger fans to keep serving others. It's something she and her boyfriend, NFL player Russell Wilson, do regularly.

"It's amazing to see how much of a difference that little moment makes, when we get to go to the hospital," she said.

The event had some familiar speakers, like WCCO's own Frank Vascellaro and Amelia Santaniello, along with Ciara, Chelsea Clinton and Glee actor Darren Criss, who told us he volunteered as a teen in San Francisco.

"Just simple things like working in a soup kitchen," he said, "being able to expose yourself to other kinds of lives and other people's stories."

Henry Winkler used the stage to tell his story.

"I am in the bottom three percent, academically, in the U.S.," he said.

Still, he reached his dreams and is lifting up some young Minnesotans to grab hold of theirs.

"Every one of you is great," he said. "Every one of you has greatness inside you. Your job is to figure out what your gift is, dig it out and give it to the world."

And together they cheered, 18,000 young Minnesotans celebrating the art of giving, while receiving others to their stage.

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