By Shinoah Young

Calendar featuring local aboriginal role models to go on sale

Aug 29, 2013 | 8:49 AM

A new calendar to promote inspirational members of the Aboriginal community as role models for youth is expected to hit store shelves in the Prince Albert area this fall.

This is the first year that the calendar will be offered. The 2014 calendar was created by Conrad Burns, who assembled a board which selected 12 models in total.

They were chosen based on their stories and experiences. The response to the call for submissions was overwhelming.

“I had to turn down so many amazing people. I’m happy I didn’t do it by myself. Because I created the board to get this going. And it was so much easier with a board.”

For the project, seven women and four men were selected, and the photo shoot wrapped up a week ago.

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“We have … 12 amazing models … four guys and seven women,” he said of the models who range in age from 18 to 35. All models were volunteers, but they were paid an honourarium for driving in for the shoot.

Burns said there actually will be two calendars – one geared towards men and one towards women.

Burns said he’s hoping to sell 3,000 calendars at $20 each. They will go on sale on Sept. 30. The calendars have been primarily promoted on Facebook, and he’s looking to get them into places like schools and gas stations.

All of the money raised from the calendar will go towards the Bernice Sayese Centre’s 2014 summer camps. The camps will be culture/leadership camps, and Burns is hoping it will be an all-expenses-paid camp.

Any funds raised over and above the amount needed for the summer camp program will be donated towards diabetes research.

Burns is a youth mentor who helps students at Carlton Comprehensive High School and he said this is the first one of many calendars. But he would also like to look into having a runway of hope, which would raise awareness about abuse.

He’s aiming to have a calendar release event in Prince Albert in early-October.

“After October, we’re going to open them up to next – 2015 role models.”

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