BONNYVILLE – The Bonnyville Victim Services Unit (VSU) said goodbye to a volunteer who has been involved with the program for over two decades.
After 25 years, Grace Hebert made the difficult decision to retire from her role as a volunteer advocate.
“I think the time had come,” Hebert told Lakeland This Week during her retirement celebration on Oct. 30. “When I hit 25 (years), I started thinking I’ve been involved in many things, and it’s time to take some time for me.”
Debbie Winstone, Bonnyville VSU program manager, wasn’t surprised when she received Hebert’s resignation letter.
“I was expecting it, honestly. She’d been here a long time, ‘you know, I’m getting tired.’ Twenty-five years is a long time and then I think with COVID-19, it hit us in March and she made the decision to retire in June... It was maybe the opportunity for her to see what it was like without it, so it was kind of forced at that point because we weren’t doing calls or anything. I was sad when she sent me her resignation, but I wasn’t surprised.”
Hebert had been in her role when Winstone was hired, and Winstone described her as "a wealth of knowledge."
“I learned a lot from her,” she continued. “We had some really good times, we had some sad times, and we just kind of shook it off and did it all over again the next day.”
It was a friend working with victim services who suggested Hebert sign up.
“I had a friend who was in it and she kept saying to me ‘you belong there, you should come and join,’” she recalled. “One day, she talked me into it and I did join.”
There have been many changes to the Bonnyville VSU since Hebert joined. The group now has a set of offices in the Bonnyville detachment, when previously they used any free desk available at the old facility.
“When I first started, we had a lot of connections with the RCMP,” Hebert noted. “We worked with them steadily on our files. When we went into the new station, the program had changed and the coordinators did all that. We just coordinated with them, told them what we found, or did, or whatever, and we had very little connection with the RCMP. I found that hard. When we moved from the old cop shop to the new one, I did a lot of thinking. I went in and sat and it wasn’t my spot. I kept going in and going in and Deb being there, it got me going.”
Another difference, which she’s going to miss, was the introduction of Odie the service dog. Hebert described Odie as her buddy.
“When he first came, as soon as I came to the door, it wasn’t even open and he knew it was me there,” Hebert laughed. “He’d be getting heck because he wasn’t told he could get up and visit.”
Whether it was assisting run a bereavement group or answering a call in the middle of the night, Hebert proved that she had a passion for working with victims of crime.
“Many of them, I understood because I had family who had gone through some of the things, and you can understand what they were saying. Break and enters, I really felt that one because I had been broken into a couple of times. When they talked to me, I could understand what they were saying.”
Hebert added, “You know you’ve been invaded. Your house isn't the same, your yard isn't the same, but as the years went on . . . it was worse. It got harder to make those calls because some of these people you were phoning were broken into how many times? They can’t get insurance anymore, so it made it hard and some people, with small towns, you knew people.”
There was one point when it looked like the Bonnyville VSU would fold, but Hebert kept it going. The coordinator had moved and other advocates were leaving because they believed the unit was done. But, Hebert stepped up to the plate to keep it alive.
“One of the older girls who worked at the cop shop said to me ‘if you don’t keep it going, it will go down. It’s gone down once and a second time, it’s harder to get up. Why don’t you keep it going?’ There weren't many calls at that time, all we had was a pager, so we didn’t have the phone. I said ‘well, I’ll give it a try’ and then I recruited one more and recruited another one. I did the books for them, for the liaison, and eventually, it started picking up more and more because we didn’t want to see it fail.”
When asked why it was important to keep the VSU going, Hebert stressed how crucial the service is for the community.
“When you see what Victim Services does for people, you don’t give up on it. We live a very sheltered life until we work on something like this and really see what the world is and that’s what makes you do it.”
Although she’s officially retired, Hebert still sees herself sticking around to help out the Bonnyville VSU. It’s more of a ‘see you later’ than a ‘goodbye’ for her.
