The stars appearing at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Wednesday will most likely bring a capacity crowd of more than 18,000 students from 550 schools to their feet.

But unlike at most events, the most enthusiastic cheers may come from the musicians, actors and activists who take the stage. In fact, they would likely be the first to acknowledge that the real stars of the second annual We Day Minnesota are the students themselves.

The students will have earned their We Day tickets by committing to complete one local and one global action of their choice as part of We Act, a yearlong program of social action. Well beyond the motivation of We Day, the program provides students with educational resources to fulfill those commitments.

The We Act movement and We Day were started by Free the Children, a Canada-based nonprofit launched by Craig Kielburger, who will be joined on stage Wednesday by his brother and Free the Children partner Marc. Craig Kielburger became an activist at age 12 after reading in his local newspaper about a boy his age who was murdered in Pakistan because of his activism against child labor.

If a fire can be lit from the small spark of a newspaper article, imagine the firepower from musicians, motivational speakers and activists like The Band Perry; Lennon and Maisy Stella; Kweku Mandela (Nelson Mandela's grandson); Magic Johnson; Martin Sheen; astronaut Eileen Collins, and others.

Free the Children has inspired kids to engage in bettering their back yards and the broader world. We Day events have taken place for several years across Canada. Now it's an international movement with events in the United Kingdom and beginning last year in the United States.

Minnesota was among the first two states to participate, and students resoundingly responded. Among the accomplishments: 220 state schools took part in Free the Children's We Scare Hunger campaign and collected more than 161,000 pounds of food to donate to food banks. Last year's participants volunteered 167,000 hours of community service and raised $378,250 for causes both local and global. And that's just for year one. Now that We Act is established, with its accomplishments celebrated on Wednesday, year two should bring even bigger philanthropic gains.

Worldwide since 2007, We Act participants have raised $45 million for more than 1,000 global and local causes, have volunteered 14.6 million hours, and have collected 5.6 million pounds of food, among other accomplishments.

The admirable performance by participants in Minnesota is a testament to the state's deeply woven culture of civic engagement, which We Act builds upon to help create, or unleash, an optimistic generation of young people.

And it's also due to strong local leadership and support from individuals like siblings Hutton and Dean Phillips, who serve as co-chairs, as well as institutions like the Edward J. Phillips Foundation; the Otto Bremer Foundation and Bremer Bank; the Carlson Family Foundation; the Allstate Foundation, and Outnumber Hunger, among other organizations.

Part of the power of We Day Minnesota is for students to see that their commitment to better their world is not a lonely crusade but a movement of thousands of like-minded Samaritans locally and globally — as evidenced by nearly 3.8 million "likes" on Facebook and more than 1 million Twitter followers. Those not in attendance can watch a live stream starting at 9 a.m. on weday.com and wcco.com. Those doing so may be inspired to take part in the program next year.

Media coverage, by its nature, often needs to reflect the challenges, and consequences, young people face. We Day Minnesota and the yearlong We Act program won't make those stories go away. But the bigger picture is that the majority of this state's students are good kids trying to do good things. All should be cheered, including the 18,000-strong on Wednesday who should save some of their cheers for themselves.