Donate to help Kayla’s journey to bring home the Gold

Hi, I am Daniela Meyer, Kayla’s mom. I have started this campaign as an effort to raise the current funds needed to help Kayla on her journey to take her training to the next level and represent Canada on the world stage.

Kayla started her taekwondo journey at the age of 10, at Kick Nation Taekwondo in Georgetown, ON, with the world-class, Master Robert Khamsouk, and immediately developed a true passion for the sport. A sport that has not only taught her the meaning of discipline, hard work, determination and perseverance, but which has also played an integral part in building her self-confidence, leadership skills and character.

At her beloved Kick Nation Club, after earning her blue belt, she was asked to join their prestigious Junior Leadership program, and later down the road, their Senior Leadership program. As a current Senior Leader, Kayla is not only leading and teaching a next generation of taekwondo athletes, but has become a true role model and inspiration to so many young kids, in particular so many young girls, who look up to her and dream and believe that if Kayla, a young female athlete in a male-dominated sport, can do it and triumph, they can too. Words cannot describe the feeling of pride and joy you feel to watch a young lady like her, empower, day by day, other young ladies, to believe in themselves, to be courageous and to leave their marks in the world.

Although Kayla started her taekwondo training a little late, compared to a lot of elite athletes in the sport, in a short period of time, it became evident to her coaches, instructors and fellow athletes, that she possessed the raw talent, skills, hard-work ethic and passion required to become a champion. At just shy of her 14th birthday now, and after a lot of training, hard work and determination, Kayla has become a High Performance taekwondo athlete, who is being recognized as a great athlete with a lot of potential and a very promising future in the sport.

In October 2023, Kayla competed in her very first High Performance Taekwondo Championship, The Phoenix Memorial Taekwondo Cup, winning the Gold medal. A month later, she competed in the Ontario Provincial Taekwondo Championships, where she earned the Bronze medal and qualified to compete in the upcoming National Taekwondo Championships, this July 2024, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she has already set her goal, to win Gold and become our next National Champion.

Over this past year, Kayla has been elevating her training by attending multiple elite training camps here in Canada and the USA. She has had the opportunity to cross train with not only Canadian and American National Team athletes, but also with other international athletes who travel to these camps in order to train with the best. She has gained an invaluable amount of experience, skills and insight from training with these amazing athletes and their accompanying National and Olympic level coaches.

We have just received the elating news that Kayla has been selected by Taekwondo Ontario, as one of a small group of athletes, and as one of only four cadet female athletes, to travel to South Korea for three weeks this August, to attend a rigorous elite training camp with the Korean National Team and coaches. She has also been selected as one of the athletes who will be competing and representing Canada at the 2024 Kimunyong Cup International Open Taekwondo Championships in Muju, Korea. This will mark Kayla’s first major international competition since competing at this past 2024 US Open Taekwondo Championships in Reno, Nevada.

With all of that said, here in Canada, in the sport of taekwondo, to train and travel to continue to train and compete at this high level, is mostly, if not all, self-funded by the athletes. Our goal with this campaign to raise $10,000, is to help Kayla cover some of the costs for this fast-approaching trip to Korea, which will include flights, accommodation, meals, coaching/training fees, tournament registration fees, etc. As well as help cover some of the costs to continue training and competing for the remainder of 2024. This campaign will not only tremendously help cover about 50% of these costs, but most importantly, will help Kayla continue to train at this level, elevate her game and get her one step closer to achieving her ultimate dream, which is to one day have the great honour of representing Canada at the Olympic Games.