'You're beautiful': Alberta student moves classmates to tears with compliments

As soon as she saw a YouTube video of high schoolers reacting after receiving compliments, Olivia Brockhoff knew she wanted to test the social experiment for herself.

For a communications media class at Holy Rosary High School in Lloydminster, Alta., the Grade 10 student approached peers and teachers, camera in hand, and told them she wanted to film them because she thought they were beautiful.

Her subjects' reactions reflected a range of emotions. Some people cried, some said thank you, some smiled and others laughed.

"I had an emotional reaction after I was watching all of them and putting them together," she told CBC News Wednesday.

"A compliment can go a long way."

Her video, posted to Facebook on Sunday, has been viewed more than 12,000 times.

Watch Olivia Brockhoff complimenting peers and teachers at her high school

This isn't the first time Brockhoff has gone out of her way to make someone else smile.

When she was in Grade 6, she started collecting pyjamas for the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton after a friend's younger sister spent time there. 

Through her "Project PJ by Olivia" campaign, she has donated thousands of pairs of pyjamas to the Stollery. Five years later, she's still running the campaign and has expanded it to benefit another hospital.

The 16-year-old said she tries to spread positivity and hope in her community as much as she can.

"I want the world to be a good place for everybody around me and I want to help everybody around me that I can help," she said.

Brockhoff said she hopes her video inspires others.

"We need to be complimenting people more, and telling them, 'you are enough, as you are beautiful'" she said.