It started as a sort of ride-along for Allison Kalist, joining a friend at her unique summer job. But she was immediately swept up by the energy and enterprise of the Summer of Service (SOS) team that she soon found herself totally involved as a volunteer.
That was three years ago. Now the first-year University of Waterloo student is preparing to lead the team of youth as they head into the community this summer to help out where they can and spread a little happiness along the way.
“The first day, I remember it was Friday … we would go through the Starbucks drive-through in Bradford,” playing music, talking to people and then washing cars in the afternoon, recalls the 18-year-old Newmarket resident. “I just also liked the idea of brightening people’s day, if we could.”
It was 2021 and society was beginning to socialize again and getting back to routines following the isolation and lockdowns of COVID. For Kalist, the SOS team was something of an awakening, providing her with purpose in that whole post-COVID transition.
The program, funded by Canada Summer Jobs and run by Bradford Community Church, aims to provide help where needed. The crew, made up of a paid summer and a volunteer younger contingent, accept nothing in return and add a little sunshine into people’s day along the way.
Kalist connected with the entire team and continues to maintain contact. And since the program was organized by the Bradford church, she began attending. She continues to join them as part of a worship team that gathers once per month to play music at the start of the church service, when her school schedule allows.
The following summer she joined the SOS team as part of her five-week school co-op and stayed on for the remaining three weeks.
That summer they look on several laborious jobs. That included working at the charitable farm animal rescue organization, Wishing Well Sanctuary, for a week where they shovelled pig poop, cleaned out animal living quarters, tore up decomposed garden beds and cleared vine-wrapped fencing.
“This summer we’re still thinking of ideas,” she says. “Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses … so I really want to get a good combination.
“The work we do is not about us as a team, it’s about the community we’re helping.”
She’s keeping an open note on her phone that she revisits from time to time, adding ideas on both the approach of the team and projects she expects to become involved in.
The paid team, explains Bradford Community Church Pastor Cory Kostyra, is assisted in its work by a volunteer crew of youths aged 12 to 15. Last year there was a total youth crew of 25 that was broken into teams of five.
Each determined what projects they would become involved in. Projects have included providing music at seniors’ homes, cleaning up garbage, working in the community garden, playing music at a Starbucks drive-through and working with the homeless.
No compensation is accepted, he adds, members even refuse water.
There have also been team-building nights where the rules are: “Thou shall go out and have fun,” adds Kostyra. “After that they just kept wanting to keep hanging out together.”
