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CALS Volunteer Appreciation Picnic
CALS Volunteer Appreciation Picnic
Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent
Spirits were bright even though the weather was overcast when Community Association for Lasting Success (CALS) hosted a year end Volunteer Appreciation Picnic Lunch in the closed in gazebo at Rotary Peace Park on June 19.
CALS Executive Director Jennifer Dixon said, “Over the 2022-2023 school year CALS had over 80 volunteers give their time to support the CALS Breakfast Club, the CALS School Nutrition NonProfit Pilot Program, the Friends of the CALS Breakfast Club and the CALS Board.
CALS would not be able to provide the programs that we do without the generous help of so many incredible volunteers. We just love our volunteers and we are so fortunate that we have a large number of people who give their time to not just to one program but can be found helping out in many of our programs.
Our programs are developed for our community and the community of Vegreville supports us with manpower and wonderful volunteers. Our volunteers make a lasting impact through the CALS Breakfast Club and CALS School Nutrition Non-Profit Pilot Program by preparing food for the students of Vegreville and this helps to remove just one of the barriers for students, which is going to school hungry. We want to acknowledge V.A.L.I.D for being so willing to sign up each year to deliver snacks and meals to our schools. CALS Breakfast Club prepared approximately 58,800 snacks for the school year and the CALS School Nutrition Non-Profit Pilot Program reheated and distributed approximately 40,000 lunches.
Dawn Bidulock and Carolyn Kowalchuk from Baba’s Best Catering Co. and Chef Sheldon Thompson from Vegreville Composite High School created the menus and prepared all the School Nutrition meals.
The food from our programs allows students to have access to nutritious food at no cost to the students. This is what brings our volunteers back each week and each year. They believe and support CALS initiatives and for that we are so grateful.
We were so happy to celebrate our volunteers at the picnic. We had approximately 35 guests attend our picnic.”
Volunteer Amy Yakimetz, who is on CALS Board, said the best parts about volunteering are getting to be being involved in the community and getting to have a say in what happens and to see what an impact she is making.
