By Community Affairs

Priority and Passion

Dec 15, 2010 | 7:51 AM

My little boy was born very, very premature. He was a handful at 3 ½ lbs. My priorities and passions changed that day. Now he is five and going to school and wants to be involved in soccer and tae kwon do and have friends over and we are finding that as we both get older, our lives evolve as baby turns to toddler and toddler turns to kid and – eventually – kid turns to teen and so on.

Why am I telling you this and what does a tidbit of my personal history have to do with Community News?

Well – because I am just like you. I am finding out that as we age, priorities change – passions are found – life’s fullness becomes increasingly apparent.

This is where community groups come in.

As the days, months and years go by different things become important to us. There are times when we all stand at a precipitous and wonder. “What am I going to do with THIS (knowledge, frustration, need to help others who have to follow in the trails we have left).”

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That’s what community groups are. They are groups of people from the community who share similar experience, similar passion, similar interest. They are born out of life and life’s necessities. They are all important. Each one is significant because people who had a similar experience and god-given passion in a certain area created that group – that common voice – and instinctively know that there are others in the community who are just like them.

They are ISKWEW – for women who have been battered – created by women with common experience who want to know they can use what happened to them – to have some meaning – to help someone else.

They are the Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild who have a passion keep an art form passed down from woman to woman to woman – alive, making something beautiful from wool.

They are Cancer Support groups for those who are diagnosed and for those who love someone with Cancer.

They are the Parent/Teacher organizations made up of dedicated volunteers who are making it their business to ensure that schools are the very best they can be for the children – and for the families that they serve.

When I was young(er) I came to Prince Albert from a weekly newspaper in Tisdale. I had been recruited there by The Prince Albert Daily Herald. In this job – getting the scoop, getting a great story – and trying to outdrink Greg Urbanoski became worthy goals to me at that point in my life.

Later – taking University Art Classes I was arrogant about art and what fit into my narrow view based on intense but, in retrospect, limited experience. It was important to me then to understand the lingo and to fit.

As I build our User Group database – and find more and more groups – I feel tremendous joy. It is not a joy that comes with the sense of putting another notch in my belt – or to impress my boss.

Instead it is a feeling of satisfaction that has come from empathy for people who are searching and needing a passion in their lives.

I have always been almost driven to hear the stories of others – and in my years, I have heard a lot of stories.

As I work at this job now, I think about women I have known in situations where they were scared and didn’t know who to turn to or what to do, the street kids who had no better option in their life than to sleep under the bridge and go to the store by PACI to get the lunches other students had thrown away. I remember the people I have met who had suffered from one or more addictions – and found a path to healing that has lasted a lifetime and changed who that person was, or the young girl who was pregnant and scared and not knowing what to do, or the artists I trained with – many of whom started after retirement because they finally had time to explore something they were always wanting to do – and finding help through a community group.

And I imagine people like this looking at the Community Group News page, scrolling through the list, looking for something that will fit them and where they are in their lives. Then, in the privacy and security of their home – going through the journal entries for that group to find out and really get to know that group before taking the first and frightening step into a new world.

It maybe a mom whose last child has left for college who is wondering what to do now. As she looks through the page, sees that there is a ceramics class at the arts centre. That is something she always wanted to do but didn’t have the time.

Maybe it is the guy who have just retired from an intense job he had devoted so much of his life to and then, suddenly is at home and begins to look through the listings to see the Klassic Kruisers Kar Klub or The Optimists or Rotary or The Golf and Curling Club.

What about the young professionals who have moved into the city? They have their work to go to but then what. They are looking to see where they fit – what friends can be made.

All these groups are made up of Prince Albert people who each have a story to tell.

Please keep scrolling through the entries and scrolling through the groups to see what might fit you.