Peace medals handed out to community members

Written by Ashley Gaboury
Wednesday, 22 February 2012 10:35

Franco Savoia, CEO of YMCA Wood Buffalo, presents Maria Fustic and Judith Slattery (left and centre) with the peace medal. (Ashley Gaboury)Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and volunteering with a tremendous number of local organizations were recognized as outstanding contributions to the community at the 2011 YMCA Peace Medal award ceremony.

The 2011 Peace Medal was awarded to Judith Slattery in the adult category and to Maria Fustic in the youth category. Each was presented with the YMCA peace medallion and a certificate from the Wood Buffalo YMCA.

Carolann Wright, with Wood Buffalo YMCA fitness and relationship development, says the peace medal has been awarded by YMCAs across Canada for the past 25 years.

“The reason they do this is they want to honour and recognize people within their communities that they feel are doing outstanding work in strengthening the community and making it a better place to live.”

Wright says Slattery was recognized for both her engagement in the Fort McMurray community and the tremendous amount of volunteer work she does.

“She helps out everybody just by working in the community and being involved in the community,” said Wright.

On top of her duties as executive director of the Community Network Association, Slattery also volunteers with a wide array of organizations including Habitat for Humanity and the community advisory council for the RCMP.

Teresa Petraglia, who nominated Slattery, says it is her involvement in so many committees— including areas such as life-long learning, employment, and chronic disease self-management—that is to be commended.

“I think that the most important thing to recognize is that she’s involved in so many committees. She really does make a significant difference in everybody’s lives,” said Petraglia.

Slattery said her first thought upon learning she had been nominated was ‘why me?’

“Because I do what I do and none of the little pieces seem like much at the time,” she said.

“I think I was surprised. I was grateful. I was more honoured to be nominated because if you go back and look at the history of the award I’m in a great group of people.”

Slattery says that once her children were grown she was able to get more involved in the community through volunteer work.

“You help when you can, and if I can I will,” said Slattery. “Engagement is a way of being involved. It’s how I chose to live my life. I chose to live my life not as a bystander but as a participant.”

Wright says Fustic, the 2011 youth recipient, provides an example for other youth in the community and what they can achieve.

“(Maria) was chosen because we feel that youth are the ones that can make a difference in our community,” said Wright.

“They’re young and they inspire a lot of youth to get involved and to make our community a better place. Just knowing what she has done—she’s climbed that mountain and raised all that money for malaria.”

Last summer, Fustic climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise both money and awareness for Malaria Bites, a Canadian Red Cross program. To date, she has raised over $15,000.

Jina Burn, who nominated Fustic for the award, says Maria is an exceptional youth.

“She cares about other people, and her desire to climb Mount Kilimanjaro was not the only thing that she put ahead of her but as well as to save lives,” said Burn. “She’s just a very giving person and I know that she can do a lot for the community.”

Fustic says she was honoured by the nomination and shocked when she learned she had won the award.

“I was really honoured. I couldn’t believe that they chose me out of all people—I’m only 14 years old…I was really thankful and grateful,” said Fustic.

The 2011 YMCA peace medal award ceremony was held Feb. 16 at the Wood Buffalo YMCA.

Also in attendance was Al Hancock, a local mountaineer who has climbed the likes of Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro.

The peace medal is awarded as part of the YMCA’s world peace week, which this year was held Nov. 19-26, 2011.