CALLING LAKE – Athabasca RCMP got into the spirit of the season last week too, reaching out to Calling Lake residents who needed a hand during the holidays, and getting a hand themselves from someone who knows the community as well as anyone.
Local RCMP staff teamed up with Northern Corridor Victims Services to put together Christmas care bags for residents that included toques, winter gloves, personal hygiene items, Tim Horton’s gift cards, and a couple even had a prepaid $50 Visa card inside, which were purchased on-reserve at the JB Gambler 183 Store.
Athabasca RCMP Const. Jaret Griffin says the local detachment has a strong mandate to police the Calling Lake area, and with that comes a strong mandate to support the community as well.
“We are trying to help support the local business on the reserve and its residents,” said Griffin. “I coordinated with the manager of the store, Joanne Hicks, who is also involved heavily in the community with other matters such as the food and clothing drives and she generously agreed to distribute the items to people in the most need on the reserve.”
Hicks, who has the distinction of being the first manager of the first store to ever open on the Jean Baptiste Gambler 183 reserve, has been a big promoter of supporting the community since she returned to the area after being away for several years. As such, she has started both a food bank and a clothing bank, and being involved with the store, she is at the centre of the community.
“It was really appreciated that the RCMP did that for the community. Definitely. And I did manage to give two of those gift bags away to a man and a woman,” Hicks said Dec. 23. “I was really surprised and really happy that the RCMP came … I told them what I did, so they left it up to me because I'm there and I see the people that are in need that come in and was able to give them those donations.”
There were some emotional moments for those who were surprised to receive the gifts from the RCMP, and that’s part of the reason members wanted to put something together, said Griffin, as a gesture if nothing else, to let residents know they care about the community they police. In that they are on the exact same wavelength as Hicks, who has big plans to see both the food bank and clothing bank expand to meet the growing need.
“I wanted to move back to my community and be an advocate and bring back what I went out to learn,” said Hicks, who also teamed up with Doris Naumann and Athabasca’s Santa’s Anonymous campaign this year to serve 170 families, more than ever before.
“It's home, I'm from here, so everybody knows me in Calling Lake. I was raised really poor, and I'm a Native woman, so I know the need and I know what's needed in our community.”
These are the kind of partnerships and connections that lead to successful communities, said Hicks, who gives a great deal of credit to her friends and family for the recent successes as well.
“I wouldn't be able to do this without my friends and family. They know that I have a really good heart and it's for my community. I don't really want any recognition because I’m not by myself; it's with a lot of help that I do it, and the funding that I get from Bigstone Cree Nation,” she said.
