Okotoks Stronger Together

Kindness Currency recipients

• Paige & Blakely

  

  École Percy Pegler School students Blakely, 9, and Paige, 12, are making a positive impact in the lives of Alberta children by taking on the ambitious project of donating $100,000 to the Alberta Children’s Hospital for their 100th anniversary. To do so, they are collecting $1000 in bottles and seeking 100 businesses to match their donation. 

  Together the two students spent the last three or four summers loading up wagons or wheelbarrows with bottles, with the help of their friends. They’re now recognized as familiar faces around the community – when they knock on doors, people recognize them and know they’re looking for bottles. 

  Blakely and Paige embarked on this project after both needed the hospital’s care and felt grateful that such a facility exists.  

  “We wanted to give back so kids can have access to the hospital and have new equipment,” Blakely & Paige said. “It makes us happy to be stepping up and helping the community out.”

  To date, the pair has raised $700, with the aim of collecting $1000. They’re now looking to start the next step of finding 100 businesses to match their $1000 donation. 

  Blakely and Paige, thank you for your impact on the community and on the lives of children in our province, because Okotoks is IMPACTFUL!
   

• Tamara Ford

  When Angel Lee and her family moved to Okotoks, they were overwhelmed. Their family was ex-military, and found moving to a new town after the military with no support and during the middle of a pandemic was challenging. Through Tamara Ford’s kindness, however, they were able to find resources, get the support they needed, and make important community connections.

  Tamara Ford was nominated for Kindness Currency for her kindness in welcoming not only Angel’s family, but many others to the community with open arms.

  Tamara has lived in Okotoks for over 25 years, and puts her knowledge and experience with the Town to good use helping others find information, resources and answers to their questions, and providing recommendations based on her personal experience in the community. She helps the families she meets through her work running her daycare, and jumps in to provide links or a friendly suggestions to residents asking questions on social media to help relieve their stress.    

  While the Town has many resources available through places like the Okotoks Family Resource Centre, Tamara encourages others to be the community support families new to Town need.

  “It'd be really great if more people would get on board and get out there and help families that need it, that are coming to our community,” says Tamara. “Because we want to talk about how great Okotoks is, and yes it's big, but we still have the small town feel.”

  Tamara’s selflessness and kindness in welcoming newcomers and supporting families while they settle into life in Okotoks is just one of the reasons that Okotoks is welcoming!

  "I didn't need recognition for helping others but I do thank Angel for nominating me,” says Tamara. “It is nice to know the difference it makes in people's lives."

• Educational Assistants at St. John Paul II Collegiate

  Showing kindness is a part of daily life for the Educational Assistants at St. John Paul II Collegiate (JPII), and their efforts to support not only their students but also their fellow community members is the reason this amazing group was nominated to receive Kindness Currency. 

  Jackie, Louise, Julie, Christine, Sara and Cindy serve humbly with joy and grace to ensure the learning needs of JPII’s 800+ student population are met each day. And beyond looking after students’ needs in the classroom, these six women strive to encourage kindness on a daily basis throughout Town by making sure the people they see every day feel like they matter. 

  One way Jackie, Louise, Julie, Christine, Sara and Cindy show kindness is by keeping an eye out and recognizing when someone needs support, a kind word or a listening ear. If they notice someone seems down, like they may be struggling, or their demeanor has changed, they all make the effort to find out what’s wrong and how they may able to help, particularly when it comes to Okotoks’ youth. 

  “It’s very easy in a big environment like a school to feel like you’re one unimportant little person,” says Louise. She describes that it’s important to recognize that there’s a huge variety of different students with different needs, and to meet them at their own individual levels. “It makes people feel important, loved, and wanted.”

  With the complexity of living through the pandemic, supporting Okotoks’ youth is more important than ever and the Educational Assistants strive to do what they can to ensure each and every student they work with is validated with their love and compassion, and that their community is thriving as best it can. 

  As their nominator describes, “whether its cueing another student to “fist pump” a special needs student, recognizing a student in need of a hug, or checking in on a struggling student, these ladies are a strong team of souls who have answered their call to serve the youth of our community.”

  Thank you, Jackie, Louise, Julie, Christine, Sara and Cindy, for showing that Okotoks is CARING!

• Jesse Lavoie

  Okotoks is FLOURISHING! Jesse Lavoie, volunteer coordinator for the Healthy Okotoks Coalition Community Garden, is a Kindness Currency recipient for helping Okotoks flourish one plant at a time. Jesse shares his love of volunteering and knowledge of gardening to help other gardeners grow their food and come together as a community.  

  "My favourite part of being a volunteer is helping people and expanding the community garden program," says Jesse. He encourages others who are looking for a place to garden or to meet like-minded gardeners to stop by. 

  The community garden members are always assisting each other with their gardens through shared knowledge, shared experience and a helping hand. If someone needs help or are away and needs someone to tend to their garden, the community garden members are always willing to lend a hand. 

  The community garden also has a plot for the Okotoks Food Bank, where people accessing the food bank have the ability to access fresh, local produce and the knowledge of where their food came from. 

  Thanks, Jesse, for all your work to help Okotoks FLOURISH! 

• Okotoks Pride Committee

  Okotoks is PROUD! The Okotoks Pride Committee is our latest Kindness Currency recipients for helping to make Okotoks a more welcoming and inclusive community.

  Members of the committee worked with the Town to create a Pride crosswalk as a symbol that the LGBTQ2S+ community exists 365 days a year. 

• Percy Pegler Elementary School French Immersion Kindergarteners (Accessibility Swing)

   

  Okotoks is THOUGHTFUL! Our latest Kindness Currency recipients are the French immersion kindergarten class at Percy Pegler Elementary School for their efforts to help raise money for a wheelchair accessible swing for the school’s playground. 
  
  The class came together for this project after a student, Tanner, noticed yogurt drink bottles had a returnable deposit on them, and the class started saving bottles to collect money. The young students put their heads together and voted on what they’d like to do with the collected funds. After considering a few charitable causes, most voted to help raise money for a wheelchair accessible swing for the playground. 

  The project started out between the two kindergarten classes, but soon the entire school was donating their bottles for the project. The students in the kindergarten class loved seeing firsthand how tiny acts of kindness can turn into something big and that makes an impact on their community.   

  “Spreading kindness to other people is nice and then the world will be full of kindness,” says one student. Their teacher helped them see that it is important to give and look outwardly from ourselves, and how one small, thoughtful act of kindness can spread and create many more acts of kindness.

  Watch the video to see how their small, thoughtful acts turned into a big project helping to spread kindness in Okotoks! 
   

• Percy Pegler Elementary School Kindergarteners (Take What You Need)

  The kindergarteners at Percy Pegler Elementary School wanted to make a difference in the community and brighten people’s day, and their Take What You Need project was born after a student asked her parent how they could send a card to everyone in Town.

  Inspired by the idea of spreading kindness through small gifts for the community, the class banded together to pay kindness forward after a difficult 18 months for everyone. 

  The students made art and drawings, picked flowers, created cards and wrote inspirational messages from the heart, and along with small toys, games and books, attached the small gifts to a fence where anyone who needed a boost could come by and take what they needed.

  The messages encouraging people to be positive and remind them that they are brave had a great impact on the community, with many stopping by the fence to take a toy, book, card, and partake in the kindness. The students received incredibly positive feedback for their efforts from those who stopped by, and learned how much their kindness helped others.

  The kindergarten students embraced the idea of supporting their community through small gestures of kindness and are proof that kindness knows no age limit, because Okotoks is GIVING!
   

• Chelsea Taylor

  Grade 11 student Chelsea Taylor is making sure Okotoks is connected! She was nominated for Kindness Currency for making an impact with her project to raise funds to purchase a van for the Okotoks Food Bank to make accessing the food banks’ services easier for the community.

  To achieve her goal, Chelsea developed a way to connect others through the shared experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. She documented the experiences of people in Okotoks and the Foothills representing the past unconventional year, knowing these stories would make a difference and could be used to help the community.

  The stories recognize what was similar with our lives in the past year and what was so different, and came together in Chelsea’s book, IMPACT: How COVID-19 changed people in Foothills, Alberta. All the proceeds from the book sales are going directly to the Okotoks Food Bank.

  The idea for the book came about after searching for a volunteer opportunity at the start of 2021 and finding COVID-19 restrictions were posing a challenge. She decided to create her own opportunity to help connect her community with the help of her mom, and the idea of IMPACT was born!

  “I hope that this little book of individual experiences helps us reflect on our own COVID-19 experiences. Mostly, I hope it inspires us to move forward in a kinder and more intentional way because we can all have an IMPACT,” Chelsea says.

  Chelsea explains that she saw a need to make it easier for people in rural communities to access the food bank’s services. The Okotoks Food Bank is the main distribution hub for the entire Foothills community, and by purchasing a van for the organization, it was ensuring Foothills clients could access services in their own hamlet or town.

  Head to covidfoothills.com to donate to Okotoks Food Bank and receive your copy of IMPACT!

• Stephanie Rees

  

  Stephanie Rees was nominated for Kindness Currency for her DINO-mite way of connecting her community: Jurassic Okotoks! With the help of her family and others, Stephanie created a roar with her idea to for an event that would let everyone enjoy the fresh air as they search for dinosaurs in the wild Okotoks River Valley. 
  
  The idea occurred to Stephanie one day as she was walking through the River Valley with her husband Derek and daughters Clara and Hazel. She loved being among the beautiful trees and thought it would be the perfect place for people to explore the area with their families as it’s close to so many places people visit and has lots of parking, making it easy for folks to access.
  
  Derek, Clara, Hazel and others all pitched in to create signs and posters to draw people to the event, helped hide the dinosaurs for others to search for, and made sure the dinosaurs stayed in place. 

  For Stephanie, it was a way for people in the community to connect through a shared experience, and through photos and social media to spread the fun. The joy, excitement and unexpected reactions it created for those joining in the fun was worth the effort and made her proud of her hometown. 

  “I’ve grown up out here and I just love seeing how our community has grown and developed. I enjoy being a part of it, and I want my kids to be part of it. Okotoks is my home,” says Stephanie. 

  Jurassic Okotoks is on until the end of May 24 – how many dinos will you find?!
  

  

  

• The Johnston family

  

  The Johnston family received Kindness Currency for their efforts to help strengthen their connections with their neighbours and build their community spirit. 

  Justin, Michelle, Lyla, Liam, Abigail and Jack Johnston love to spend time together with friends and family, and enjoy getting to know their neighbours and making things to brighten their days. They joined the Community Champion Program as a way to get more involved and let their neighbours know they are there for one another. 

  “We are closer to our neighbours because of it,” says Michelle. “We love the sense of community Okotoks has. Everyone is there for one another and cares about what’s going on.”

  The children enjoy creating and delivering thoughtful surprises to those around them such as boxes filled with treats, photos and kind letters. Lyla found a new way to keep in touch with other neighborhood children by becoming pen pals and exchanging hand written letters. Abigail loves to create cards for others. 

  Together, the Johnston family is making a difference by looking out for one another and building the true sense of community in their neighbourhood.  
   

• Hannahlynn Clifford

  

  Meet our first Kindness Currency recipient, 9-year-old Hannahlynn Clifford! Hannahlynn loves to help others in her community. She is an active community volunteer and is making a difference through her initiative Hannahlynn’s Backpacks, which makes up backpacks full of supplies for the homeless. 

  “It doesn’t matter how small you are, you can make a difference and help people, with or without a disability,” says Hannahlynn.   

  Hannahlynn enjoys packing the bags, and it’s her enjoyment of the activity that led her to come up with the initiative - she does all the work! To date, Hannahlynn has made up over 1000 backpacks over the last five years, including 300 this past Christmas alone to donate to The Mustard Seed to distribute to Calgary’s homeless. She collects donations through her Facebook and Instagram pages (currently seeking items to make summer bags), and raises money to buy supplies for the backpacks through Kool-Aid stands, bottle collecting and support from the community. She also partners with other community initiatives such as the charity haircut bus to help distribute her backpacks.  

  Volunteerism is also a big way in which Hannahlynn gives back to her community. She raised $600 for the Veteran’s Food Bank by making and selling poppy keychains, she volunteers with Baby It’s Cold Outside, It Takes a Village and participates in many walks all year, including the Coldest Night of the Year walk. Her favourite charities to support are organizations that help animals. 

  Hannahlynn and her mom Leanne love spending time walking around on Okotoks’ pathways. For them, it’s the people that make Okotoks great. “Okotoks is friendly and people know who Hannahlyn is and recognize her!” Thank you , Hannahlynn, for your positive impact in Okotoks!  

• Mamie's Treats

  

  Mamie’s Treats was nominated for Kindness Currency to say thank you for all the small gestures they do to make people smile!

  Mamie's helps to spread kindness in Okotoks by gifting forward treats to fellow people in Okotoks and local businesses. These small gestures help brighten people's days and brings a little joy to their lives.

  Mamie's is passionate about reducing waste, and consistently strives to make people smile through random acts of kindness and by giving back to their community.

  
   

• Marvin Ogayon

  

  Marvin Ogayon was nominated to receive Kindness Currency for his efforts to give back to his community and help those who may be struggling.

  For every car he sells at his job, Marvin personally donates $25 to the Okotoks Foodbank. Marvin explained that the reason he wants to give back is because he recognizes how fortunate he is and wants to pay it forward. 
  
  "I saw how many people were struggling through the pandemic and who needed an extra helping hand, so I wanted to contribute," said Marvin. 

  Thank you Marvin for your ongoing support for your community and helping to spread kindness in Okotoks!