Once a Girl Guide, always a Girl Guide for one local resident.
Tamara Sweet-Letts, who was recently acknowledged as an Outstanding Volunteer by the City of Prince George, spends the majority of her volunteer hours with the Girl Guides of Canada.
"I started when I was five and never left the organization," she said.
Sweet-Letts grew up in Terrace and then lived on the Sunshine Coast for a while before moving to Prince George to attend university in 1999.
Sweet-Letts, who now works at UNBC, never left the university either and moved from student to employee in a smooth transition.
"I met my husband here and he and I call Prince George home," she said.
Her current role with the Guides is contact guider for the 11th Prince George Girl Guides.
Over her years in the guiding movement, Sweet-Letts has also been district commissioner who is responsible for the guiders within the district. Prince George is divided into two districts, Harmony and Chilco.
"A commissioner is mostly an HR (human resources) role and so you're dealing with making sure the units have the correct number of guiders (adult Girl Guides who lead), ensuring those guiders have the proper training so that they can be the best guiders that they can be, which also correlates to the role I have now which is the provincial training advisor. So I sit on a provincial committee and I am responsible for guider training for the province."
There is mandatory training to be a guider called Safe Guide which raises awareness of risk involved and addresses the due diligence required to be a guide leader who takes girls on activities, Sweet-Letts explained.
Youth members of Girl Guides are five to 18 years old, while adults are provincial age of majority and older. In Prince George there are about 300 Girl Guides with about 50 to 75 guiders.
Each week, Sweet-Letts meets with her Girl Guide group for two hours at a time.
Other volunteer obligations include participating in community activities like Canada Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies, as well as selling the famous Girl Guide cookies. Of course, there is camping, and other activities that add to the fun.
"I had such a great time as a youth member in Girl Guides that when I got older I wanted to be able to give other girls those experiences and just be a part of something great," Sweet-Letts said. "Girl Guides is a great organization and it's about empowering women to be the best possible people they can be. Part of our promise is to be true to myself, my beliefs and Canada and also part of our promise is to take action for a better world. So we together as an organization can make a difference and I think it's important to teach young women that and, of course, I have a lot of fun doing it."
As other girls follow her lead, Sweet-Letts points out she's been with the organization long enough to see those who started as Girl Guides become adult guiders.
"There are adults in my district now that I have known since they were five, six and seven," Sweet-Letts said. "It's great to see that they've not only stayed with the organization but they have done things to better themselves. There's a number of girls who have not stayed with the organization but are still doing great and amazing things in Prince George and in B.C. and even though they haven't stayed with the organization they've made a difference."
Along with volunteering with Girl Guides, Sweet-Letts also volunteers her time with the PG Rated Roller Derby Society as the head non-skating official.
"So I help officiate roller derby games," Sweet-Letts said, who first noticed roller derby when reps had an information table at the university several years ago looking for "fresh meat," meaning newbies to recruit for the teams of roller derby participants. The Fresh Meat program lasts about 12 weeks and teaches those who dare to participate the rules of the game. Sweet-Letts made a go of it but her recurring ankle injury was just too much, so she took on the non-skating official role instead.
"Derby is another organization that is very women focused and empowerment focused and so I felt it was important for me to stay involved," Sweet-Letts said.
She also volunteers during Relay for Life and most recently spent time at the Variety Radiothon. She has sat on the board for Volunteer Prince George as well as the university's alumni association.
Next up is the Girl Guide camp, SOAR 2017 (Spirit of Adventure Rendezvous) that takes place July 22-29, and sees guides from all over the world gather together in Smithers.
"Volunteering is just something I've always done," Sweet-Letts said. "I think being involved with Girl Guides probably started it because we do volunteer activities. Being involved with volunteer activities as a kid just kind of made me aware that those things exist and that lots of organizations would not exist without volunteers."
Flip through The Citizen's Volunteer City series, featuring stand-out volunteers in Prince George:
