Volunteer Awards in Airdrie

Tonight, I had the privledge of accompanying my wife to the Airdrie 10th Anniversary Volunteer of the Year Awards dinner. 

My wife is an Income Tax Volunteer in this area.  She volunteers her time to prepare the income tax returns for low income individuals and families.  She and her colleagues (eight in all) completed dozens of income tax forms and logged more than 200 hours time!  The group was nominated for an award, hence the invite.

What a fantastic program.  More than a dozen individuals and groups were nominated and honored over the course of the evening.  I think they're all winners for making their city (Airdrie mostly) a better community.

Congratulations to;

• David Lindsay, the high school student who won the 2012 Leader of Tomorrow Award
• The Airdie Food Bank, the volunteer group who won the 2012 Volunteer Advocate Award
• Linda & Lawrence Ray, the couple who won the 2012 Airdrie Ambassador Award
• Rob Van Biesen who won the Soul of Airdrie Award

During the ceremony and presentations, my mind wandered for a moment back to Beiseker.  Beiseker has the same kind of volunteer spirit as Airdrie, except perhaps just on a smaller scale.  The volunteers who help at the Arena, the skate park, the ball diamonds, the school, the soccer fields, the Country Fair, the Clean Up this Saturday, and the myriad of other volunteers around here are all working hard at making our Village that much better! 

But we don't acknowledge them much at all!  Why is that?