Airdronian Brent Davis has received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for his years of service helping people both home and abroad recover from disasters.
Davis serves as the chairperson for the Alberta Non-Governmental Agency Council and is the director of Canadian Ministry Projects with Calgary-based Samaritan’s Purse. He has served all over the world in natural disaster areas and in war zones, and has been involved in dozens of Samaritan’s Purse natural and medical disaster responses.
Some of those included the 2013 southern Alberta floods, the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, a serious COVID-19 outbreak in Thunder Bay, Ont. in 2021, and last year’s Hurricane Fiona response in Prince Edward Island.
“We get involved directly with individuals whose homes and properties were impacted by disaster,” Davis told the Airdrie City View. “We have huge, awesome teams who come alongside, and we are able to rally volunteers in the community to help these individuals, and kind of take those first steps toward recovery after disaster.”
Davis likened Samaritan’s Purse’s efforts as putting “a tourniquet on the damage.”
“[We] get it cleaned up, so these people have some peace and some space to rebuild,” he said. “It gives them an opportunity to breathe.”
According to Davis, who comes from a construction, farming, and pastoral ministry background, none of his disaster relief volunteerism would have been possible without the support of his family and friends in Airdrie.
“It has been pretty special,” he said. “I've got a wife of 19 years and three kids, and it is not lost on me that they have sacrificed as much as I have in this work. They have gone long stretches of time without having me around … But we have also had unbelievable neighbours. We live in Old Town on Fourth Avenue. Anytime I have been away, our neighbours have always looked in on my family.”
Davis said he also credited his Platinum Jubilee Medal to all the fellow volunteers he worked with over the years to help suffering people in their greatest hour of need.
“It’s a shame it is only one medal, because it is shared by a lot of people,” he said. “The organization I am a part of has put in a lot of time, and I have had the privilege to help shape systems, protocols and processes so that we don’t have to guess how to help.
“I enjoy helping. I love the fact I have an outlet within this organization to be able to help in a way I know is making a difference.”
Davis leans on his faith and his natural compassion for people in need to help heal broken lives.
“It’s easy to feel like you are a number, and I think the beauty of the work we get involved in is people aren’t numbers, they are individuals,” he explained. “They are people who are hurting, and it’s our privilege to be able to come alongside them and serve them. We tell our volunteers to make sure the job doesn’t [become] more important than the person we are serving.”
While honoured to be a recipient of a Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, Davis feels there are a lot of unsung heroes working in disaster relief and emergency management. He hoped his medal would also serve as a means to recognize the heroic efforts of all those he has met and worked with over these past 14 years.
“I have made incredible friends within the emergency management sector,” he said. “There are amazing people who commit themselves to serving their communities behind the scenes as kind of the unsung heroes. The entirety of my knowledge and expertise has come from making lots of mistakes and making friends with people who know what they are doing.”
