Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/207624
(left) In May, BCAA's Annual Volunteer Day was devoted to shaping up conditions at Easter Seals B.C.'s summer camp in Squamish; (below) local schools gathered for BCAA's Patrol Nation event. Getting to school a half-hour early and staying late may not, on the surface, sound like a huge responsibility, but there are profound lessons to be learned, says Jennifer Botterill. Once a young safety patroller in her hometown of Winnipeg, Botterill says the skills she gained in the program helped forge a path to her later success in hockey and beyond. "I learned that you were a leader in the school, and that's what they reinforced in the program," reflects Botterill, who now serves as the national spokesperson for CAA's school safety patrol program. "You had a chance to be a leader within that school and within your community... There were lessons about teamwork, in terms of scheduling your shifts with the other patrollers and making sure that you were on time." It's not a stretch, she says, to link her time as a safety patroller to her Olympic medals. "Looking back, in hindsight, it really helped me in terms of lessons I could use with school down the road, with my athletic career and business opportunities – all those things are lessons that you can learn at a really young age, and then you have them with you for the rest of your life." • 32 w e s t w o r l d p30-34_Community Impact.indd 32 >> THE CAMP CREW When Nirm Blatchford, director of development with the B.C. Lions Society for Children with Disabilities and Easter Seals B.C., thinks back to May 16, 2013, she still gets emotional. That was the day 150 BCAA employees swooped down on Camp Squamish and gave it an extreme makeover in just 12 short hours. "We're still amazed with what happened there at camp. We're all just absolutely floored," she says, with a catch in her throat. The facilities at the camp, which runs summer programs for children with physical and/or cognitive disabilities, were rundown and in great need of repair, recalls Blatchford. Fire exits were crumbling, pathways were not fully accessible, fencing was coming down, and the amphitheatre had been destroyed in a windstorm. With the help of restoration company BELFOR Canada, BCAA's team of volunteers repainted lodges, built new fencing, cleaned up trails to make them more accessible, built new accessible picnic tables and benches, fixed fire exits and put up a new amphitheatre – among other duties. "It's made our camp more accessible and it's made our camp safer for the kids," raves Blatchford. "We were able to actually focus on sending more kids to camp, because we didn't have to worry about the repairs, and our camps are all about the kids' abilities." The big camp cleanup was the project chosen for BCAA's Annual Volunteer Day, which works with a different charity every year as part of a team-building exercise for employees that benefits the community at large. Shawn Pettipas, BCAA's community impact manager, recalls how he spent the day building wheelchair-accessible picnic tables. "Other people were painting fences, and others were building fences," he relates. "Other people were building paths. It was pretty unique, and pretty fun." The cleanup crew was treated to a talk by former Easter Seals camper and motivational speaker Marco Pasqua, 27, who lives with cerebral palsy. Looking back on the day, says Pasqua, "I can't even believe what they accomplished. That goes to show [what you can do] when you have a commonality of people with a vision and goal in mind, and strong hearts – and arms – to carry through all the things they had to do." Blatchford says her organization has never received such a sizeable donation of time and materials. But the true value, she says, was the spirit with which it was given: "We couldn't put a price on them wanting to be there, wanting to give back to our camps, wanting to help us help our kids – because we do look at them as our kids. And BCAA got it." • KEEPING KIDS SAFE Dr. David Sterling, a co-pastor and head of the Rising Stars Child Development Centre in Prince Rupert, has a small dilemma on his hands: just how to make use of the 25 free car seats he recently received through the partnership between BCAA and its Road Safety Foundation and the United Way. "This fulfills a real gap in things that we need to support these kids," he says, still a bit winter 2013 13-10-25 10:31 AM