Membership in the 2618 Rocky Mountain Rangers Army Cadet Corps is hovering around 60 youth and Cpt. Wally McCue has been finding ways to keep them busy.
Selling poppies have been just one of the activities they've participated in leading up to Remembrance Day.
They've conducted mini-Remembrance Day services at local seniors homes and on Sunday they were among those in a military-police parade at the cemetery followed by a day of remembrance at the Legion.
The pace will slow somewhat after Remembrance Day but there's still plenty on the agenda.
Weekly drill practice at the Connaught Youth Centre remains a cornerstone while about a dozen members are now playing in a bagpipe band.
They learn marksmanship, outdoor survival skills and first aid and the winter biathlon program will be up and running once the snow falls.
Field training exercises have been aided by the acquisition under contract of two former Forest Service campsites at Shasta Lake and Lower Mud River.
Upgrades are being carried out at the sites for both the corps and the public.
They include upgrading the road into the Shasta Lake - a project that required about a dozen dump truck loads of aggregate - and creating some tent pads is planned for next year.
They've also adopted a remote village in Nepal and are working to provide that community with laptop computers for its schools.
The laptops have been acquired, McCue said, so "we're just trying to raise the $900 to pay Canada Post to get them there."
But perhaps the biggest thing they're looking forward to is a trip to France next April for the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge, the First World War battle remembered as a distinctly Canadian triumph.
The journey will be paid for through a lengthy fundraising campaign.
The corps is open to youth ages 12 to 18 years old and only a small percentage move onto the military, but being a cadet is still a worthwhile experience, according to McCue.
He said a member who provides enough community service through the corps can achieve early graduation from high school. Perhaps more important, they learn leadership skills.
"They're more confident, they've had the opportunity to supervise others at a very early age," McCue said.
"We train our cadets to speak in the public and get out in the community and intermingle."
And they're definitely off the couch.
"If someone chooses to not sit in front of the computer playing video games, he can get out and do the real thing, so to speak," McCue said.
Those too young to join the corps can turn to the Navy League. It's open to youth ages nine to 11 or 12, depending on what time of year they were born, and it currently has 31 youth and nine volunteer officers.
While the sea remains several hundred kilometres away, the group still offers activities on fresh water with the help of canoes and sailboats. Learning skills related to water craft is not the group's "sole centre," commanding officer Lt. (NL) Tom Taylor said.
"We do a lot of citizenship stuff, we work with the kids on self confidence, self reliance," Taylor said.
"It's a program to give these kids better skills for themselves and the community."
Many come from parents who have either cadets or are in the military but not always. From a mom and dad's perspective, affordability is an attraction. Membership is just $75 a year per family.
"If you have three or four brothers or sisters, that's all you pay," Taylor said.
"We don't charge for the uniform, we don't charge for most of our trips. We have a summer camp down in Vancouver that I run and we charge, I think, $120 and that was for four days, bus rides, accommodation, sailing, marksmanship and outdoor adventure. It's a very low-cost program."
While Army, Air and Sea Cadets receive funding from the federal government, Navy League relies completely on the local community for financial support.
"You see the little guys out on tag days and the community puts money in our jar and that's what goes to paying our rent and some of the functions that we do," Taylor said.
