LAC LA BICHE - The 2020 Junior Citizen of the Year for Lac La Biche County has been announced, and the hardworking, altruistic recipient is 17-year-old Cordelia Lyons.
The Grade 12 J.A. Williams High School (JAWS) student has been the president of the school’s Interact Club — part of the local Rotary Club — for the past two years, and part of the community-helping organization for the last four years.
Lyons was among other young community members nominated for the annual award. She was selected by a group of community members on the Light Up the Night LLBC committee. Lyons was surprised and pleased to find out that her school and community service was recognized. She is also pleased to see recognition for groups dedicated to helping others on local and global scales
“I see the world in a very collective way. You can do so much more when it’s not just yourself. There’s a lot more impact on a single person if they have a community that’s supporting them,” she told www.lakelandtoday.ca the night she was informed of the award.
Lyons has always enjoyed helping others, and she says the work she and others do on the school’s Interact Club amplifies those characteristics.
“The Interact Club promotes service above self, and to be able to be involved with that, I’ve been able to have a lot of experience with causes both in the community as well as the global community. I’ve been involved in putting on fundraisers, and through the club I have made a lot of connections within the community,” she said.
Those nominated for this year’s Junior Citizen of the Year Award had to be 18 or under and show leadership through compassion in their community. Lyons and the local Interact Club’s most recent initiative has been a local food drive.
“The food drive was something I came up with and was able to deal with from start to finish and pull off successfully,” she said. The club’s food drive wrapped up in early November and we were able to collect 550 food items for The Waskaysoo Community Food Bank,” she said proudly.
The school’s Interact Club members also spearheaded a donation and awareness drive for WE Walk for Water, an organization that helps give the people of impoverished communities around the world access to clean drinking water.
Lyons says she enjoys keeping busy with the volunteer work and will continue her focus on helping others. The teen is planning on going to MacEwan University in Edmonton after high school to become a psychologist with a special focus on helping those in minority groups like LGBTQ+ and Indigenous people.
Her work with the Interact Club will also see her continue the local and international work with the Rotary Club because she wants to help as many people as she can in her lifetime.
The Junior Citizen of the Year Award is a relatively new community recognition, created less than 10 years ago to recognize young achievers in the community. Originally part of the Citizen of the Year awards presented during the long-running summer Pow Wow Days celebration, the junior category has more recently moved into the winter months, coinciding with the Light Up The Night annual event. In recent years, the Junior Citizen of the Year has ridden in Santa’s sleigh during the Light Up The Night Christmas parade and lit the large downtown Christmas, but because of COVID-19, Lyons was not able to be involved in the Christmas festivities.
