The Battlefords Junior Citizen of the Year, Lindsay Martel, began a life of volunteering from an early age, helping her mother with volunteering projects.
But she started what would become an incredible life of volunteering when she was only 13 years old. After volunteering at a camp, she explained, "I realized how much I enjoyed helping other people, and then whenever the opportunity arose, I grasped it and tried to help as much as I could."
After this first volunteer opportunity, she became involved with the Key Club at her school, John Paul II Collegiate, where she was given a great number of volunteer opportunities.
Lindsay's volunteer experience is too vast for the scope of this article. Outside her school, she has volunteered at churches, soup kitchens, for medical charities, camps and a variety of other programs and projects. Within the school, she has worked as a tutor, made radio announcements and helped with a large variety of clubs and organizations in a variety of capacities, including Students Against Drunk Driving and the yearbook committee.
She has also volunteered internationally, as a member of a Mission Team going to Peru in February, and for Compassion Canada. With Compassion Canada, she started sponsoring a child when she was 13 years old, and has since become a youth advocate for the organization. She is currently fundraising for a trip to visit her sponsor child.
For Lindsay, her motivation to help others comes from her own blessedness.
"I just enjoy doing it because I already have so much, so why not help other people?"
All of Lindsay's work for the local community has paid dividends in terms of community support. The numerous glowing recommendations received by the citizen of the year committee described Lindsay as responsible, kind, a natural leader, a tremendous mentor. The letters came from a variety of sources - her school, her friends, her co-workers -and praised her dedication to her community, her leadership and her compassion. One writer described her as a "compassionate, dedicated, enthusiastic young lady
Even with all of her time volunteering, she has nevertheless found enough time for school, being on the principal's honour roll during all her years at JPII and studying Advanced Placement English.
Next year, Lindsay plans to study psychology at the University of Alberta, and eventually go into law. Her own experience with divorced parents has made her interested in family law.
"My experience with divorce, and seeing kids in North Battleford, how some of them don't have parents, and how some are being adopted because their families can't take care of them, it's just one way where I could be helpful. I want to work so that I can help someone, and I think I would enjoy law."
