Youth spending hot summer days volunteering in Stratford

Youth were hard at work on a sunny Friday afternoon in Stratford, P.E.I., getting ready for a Summer Fun Day Saturday morning. It's all part of their hundreds of volunteer hours.

The art room was full at the Robert L. Cotton Centre with members of the Stratford Youth Centre sorting out items to be sold as part of a fundraising yard sale.

For Ethan Banks, spending this sunny day indoors was just one of the sacrifices you make when you are a volunteer.

"It just feels good because we know we volunteered, we got it done, we helped the community have fun or we helped raise money," said Banks.

"We just did our thing and helped out."

'Volunteers are hard to come by'

The Stratford Youth Council was created in 2015 and is made up of young people in grades 8 to 12. The council focuses on community service and meets monthly to discuss important issues.

Duane Pineau, Stratford's youth and family coordinator,said the youth council provides a service that is invaluable to the town.

"Volunteers are hard to come by these days so we can't pull off events without volunteers," he said.

"Some of these kids might even have over 100 hours already and the year is only half way through."

'Volunteer of the Year'

Some of the youth have contributed so much that they have already been recognized by the town.

Jaden Bulger was awarded Stratford's Youth Volunteer of the Year at local Canada Day festivities.

"I think it has been my life since forever, so I think people know we love to volunteer, it is what we do," Bulger said.

"I think we are gaining a lot more experience through this than we would at a regular job. We are getting paid with helping other people."

The Stratford Youth Council is full with 12 members, but encourages others to join the Stratford Youth Centre to get involved.

New program to getyouth involved

A new national youth volunteer organization called the YMCA Community Action Network (YCAN), is also sharing the Youth Centre space. It targets youth aged 15 to 21 and participants decide on what issues or topics they would like to take action on.

YCAN P.E.I. coordinator Joseph Dry saidthe program is aimed at getting youthwho want to make positive change involved in the community.

"We bring them together and give them access to a little bit of money and some help with mentoring to make sure that they can put into action the ideas that they have," he said.

This is the first group through the national YMCA initiative on the Island, but they will be opening it up to others later in August for the September group.

ykDal said their group took on a serious topic homelessness.

"I think homeless is a major problem on the Island," said Dal.

"There is always something that you can do about this issue and we wanted to be as helpful as we can."

More P.E.I. news