How was Celebrate started?

The inspiration for Celebrate began more than 20 years ago with the birth of Harvey’s and Leslie’s first child. Many parents preserve the memory of their children through photo-books. Harvey and Leslie wanted to go a big step further by collecting not only pictures and videos of their children’s lives but also the stories behind those pictures — a multimedia journal — which they would give as a gift to each child when they were grown. However, writing was a time-intensive process and with four kids, there were many gaps. Nevertheless, it was a treasure for the kids when they turned 21. In their words: "We rate it a 15 out of 10!"

This same thinking applied to the preservation of their parents' stories — they wanted their kids to know where they came from. At the time, they had to do this laboriously and expensively. They created a printed memoir for Harvey's mother. As it turns out, it also became invaluable for her as she developed Alzheimers shortly afterwards. Her book was incredible therapy and helped all her caregivers connect with her for the rest of her life!

In 2016, Harvey created LifeTales, a tech company with a social mission to help everyone, everywhere, preserve their family's stories — for themselves and for their descendants — and to do so easily and inexpensively.

The initial app — LifeTales — dramatically reduced the effort and cost of creating childhood journals. Later, LifeTales also added a module to help users create Grandparents' memoirs.

With the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, LifeTales saw an opportunity to use this same technology to help groups of people celebrate life's special moments, and at the same time create another amazing keepsake. They created the Celebrate app, making it easy for anyone to create group video gifts that are easy to make, fun to share and a joy to receive.

LifeTales' headquarters are in Toronto, Canada.