Susan Baycroft hopes to continue making an impact alongside Airdrie’s youth as the new director for Volunteer Airdrie’s Youth Volunteer Corps Program.
Baycroft said she was part of a very similar program in the City of Calgary as a youth, where she became a junior and later a senior leader.
“I actually ended up being the programmer for that very program,” she said. “Then life took me down many other roads and paths and amazing career opportunities, but I always remembered the impact that program had on me.”
As a parent she encouraged her child to seek out volunteer opportunities, she said, and that’s how she became involved with Volunteer Airdrie.
“I cannot tell you the benefits it's provided for her,” Baycroft said of her child who is still part of the program. “I was always a big cheerleader for it.”
When the opportunity arose for Baycroft to become involved in a director role, she jumped on board.
Baycroft said the organization has done a phenomenal job with the program and she hopes to build on that.
Youth are at a critical stage of development where if they’re able to see that their actions can be impactful within their community, they become far more invested within the community, she said.
“I think that as far as what I want to see happen within the program, going forward, is just a wider variety of scope for the kids to feel that they have that impact,” Baycroft said. “So that there's a little bit more variety, so that the kids, each one of them, find something that really speaks to them in one way or another.”
Baycroft said the program gives youth a sense of purpose and place in the community, as well as leadership skills and independence.
The Youth Volunteer Corps program has been running since the fall of 2019 and is partly funded by the City of Airdrie and the Province of Alberta under the Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) grant program. The other 50 per cent is fundraised, and supported through donations.
The program director is the person responsible for working directly with the youth, and will be supervising two or three adult team leaders, helping them plan community service projects, explained Dave Maffitt, Volunteer Airdrie’s board chair.
“We have over 200 youth that are registered, and approximately 65 to 75 that are regularly active,” Maffitt said. “Last year, we did about 2000 volunteer hours in the community, did around 80 to 90 projects, and supported about 17 nonprofit agencies in Airdrie.”
Maffitt said a lot of youth in the program are at risk in some sense, and feedback they’ve received tells the organization that youth see it as a safe space to be part of something and be active.
“We get tremendous feedback from the youth and from the families in the annual evaluations that we do, so we know the program is working,” Maffitt said. “And it's just a beautiful program, the youth build new friendships in the groups that they work on, and they really look forward to seeing each other on a weekly basis.”
Youth can pick and choose which projects interest them and when to participate.
The program director, Baycroft, puts together a calendar of all the projects in consultation with the team leaders where youth can sign up.
According to a Volunteer Airdrie press release, Baycroft worked with politicians to foster parents, Crown Prosecutors to young offenders and has been part of the Airdrie community for over a decade. She is also the owner and a mediator at Airdrie Mediation Services.
The Youth Volunteer Corps Airdrie division is for youth between the ages of 11 and 18.
More information about the program can be found here: volunteerairdrie.ca/yvc/
Future of Volunteer Airdrie
Maffitt and Volunteer Airdrie’s vice chair are both planning to step down later this year and currently working on a succession plan.
“We definitely are working very hard on a succession plan to make sure it's a smooth transition to leadership,” Maffitt said. “But that said, however, I still will be involved in mentoring the new chair and I'd like to stay involved in a couple of the committees that I have particular interest in.”
Maffitt has been the board chair for 10 years and believes it’s time for fresh energy and new ideas.
At this point there is nobody in line to take on the chair position but Maffitt stated there is a lot of ongoing internal discussion.
Ideally, they would like to see someone take over who has been with the organization for some years and understands how it works.
Maffitt said the organization has added some terrific new individuals on their board of directors in the last few months.
“We've got some tremendous volunteer board members that are actually working on a day to day basis to kind of move towards our vision and our mission,” Maffitt said.
He said a big challenge has been trying to develop a source of funding to hire an executive director or an office administrator.
With hired staff on board, Maffitt believes there will be less turnover and less burnout.
