Student citizenship award winners making an impact

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

According to several winners of this year’s Town of Strathmore Citizenship Awards, being a leader and making a difference in the community can be simple with a little thought and planning.

The Town of Strathmore Citizenship Award is given each year to students who have made an impact on their community.

Keeping a positive outlook is central to being a productive citizen, said Joscelin Burgos Velasquez, 11, a Grade 6 student at Sacred Heart Academy.

“Just keep positive vibes, and if anyone’s in trouble, just look out for them,” she said.

According to Emma Moore, 15, a Grade 9 student at Crowther Memorial Junior High School, citizenship means seeing an issue or problem, and taking action to help or improve that problem. Moore recommends taking four steps when one wants to move towards making a difference.

The first step of getting involved and making an impact is finding one’s own inspiration, she noted. “What do you care about? Do you want to help people, animals or the environment?”

Next, find where there is a need. “What organization or group could use some help?”

Then, develop a plan. “You need to make a goal,” said Moore. “If you don’t have a goal, it will be hard to know what you are working towards, and how big your impact can be.” 

One of Moore’s first initiatives was to donate purses filled with hygiene products for women in need at a few different local shelters.

“I had a goal of 10 purses,” she said. “I made a plan of everything I was going to do to put them together and where I was going to donate to, and pushed that out. So, it wasn’t people donating a whole bunch of different things – it was specific things that we needed that were part of the plan.” In the end, Moore was able to fill 100 purses, surpassing her initial goal by a factor of 10.

Missing a goal does not mean an initiative is a failure, she said. “Sometimes, in a way, I feel like I could have done better. But when I look back on it now, I still can see the impact I made, and I can see how big that impact was.”

Finally, Moore recommends getting others involved as well. “I try to encourage (and) mobilize, and look at how others can get involved in a cause too,” she said, adding getting others involved can help relieve pressure on an organizer. “It helps take a bit of a burden off. I’ve learned that I need to delegate different tasks to other people. When I first started, I was doing it all by myself and I realized how hard that was to manage and to do everything.”

Asher Rilling, 15, a fellow award recipient and Grade 9 student at Trinity Christian Academy, agreed that there’s strength in numbers when trying to help out.

“Try to find some friends and do something with them, because it’s easier to do it with other people than it is just by yourself,” he said.

Rilling, who has been involved in basketball, volleyball, badminton and track, believes in leadership by example. “A leader is someone who is humble and caring for others, and someone who can show younger people how to be a leader too.”

A leader also doesn’t hesitate to help out, he said. “Sometimes when some of the younger kids in my school would go for recess, some of the kids can’t really tie their shoes or zip up their coats, so usually we just have to help them with that,” he said. “Always be open for something like that and don’t just walk away from it.”

Jackson Proust, 15, citizenship award winner and Grade 9 student at George Freeman School, agreed that a leader doesn’t wait to act.

“If someone’s having a tough time, just help them get back on their feet,” he said. When one of his teams was not playing to standards, Proust made sure his teammates weren’t “getting mad and down, and messing up as much,” he said.

In addition to the four students interviewed, six others were honoured with a Town of Strathmore Citizenship Award, including Chloe Johnson, Westmount Elementary School; David Klassen, Holy Cross Collegiate; Mason Miller, Ecolé Brentwood Elementary School; Allie Drover, Wheatland Elementary School; Drayton Fast, Storefront School; and Florence Kalia, Strathmore High School.

Each awardee is provided a personalized plaque, a monetary award, and an all-access pass to town facilities for a year. Proust said he is donating $300 from his award to Family Victim Services and the food bank.