A Prince George teen is off to Ottawa today for some mental activation about sports and recreation.
The ACTIVATE 2010 National Youth Leadership Conference brings 50 young people from across Canada together to jump-start the future of community sports, recreation and fitness. One of those youth is College Heights secondary school's Lauren Bone, 17.
"I want the opportunity to meet other youth from across Canada," she said. "I want to see how their cities run, find out what works and what doesn't work, and bring that back to Prince George where I can start to work on ways of developing sports and recreation here."
Bone is an avid lacrosse player, laces up for ringette in the winter, and loves soccer as well. She is also an active member of Cindy Smith's Leadership class.
"Leadership is a passion for me," Bone said. "When I get a chance like this, to incorporate that into a whole bunch of other things I like, that's really nice."
A particular point of interest for Bone is the cost of accessing sports and recreation. She is keen to get more kids who come from financially challenged families into sporting and recreational opportunities than their pocketbooks allow all by themselves.
"Sports and recreation is a foundation of community, and future opportunities. Young people should not be shut out of that because of money," she said.
ACTIVATE is a five-day conference based at Carleton University. It is for youth aged 16 to 25 and is built around special projects that delegates are to engage in back in their home communities. Bone is scheduled to report back to The Citizen on her findings and local implementation plans once she returns.
