Youth Opportunity Program Right for Me

By: Leeann Butler

My name is Leeann Butler. I am 15 years old, and I was born and raised in Winnipeg. I have five brothers and three sisters. Some of them are older than me and have children of their own.

I attend Children of the Earth High School, and in that school there is an after school program that I attend every Monday and Wednesday. It is called the Youth Opportunity Program (YOP). This program encourages students and to go out and help the community.

I go to a couple of community centers twice or three times a week for at least one to three hours. I help out the children with their crafts, games, gym activities, computers, and other activities they lay out for the children.

I started volunteering in the spring, sometime in April, in a canteen at a near-by community centre and it was there that I first experienced volunteer work.

The reason I volunteer is to help younger children develop and have a great time in the things they do at the community centre, and to be safe out in the community. When I volunteer at the community center it makes me feel like I’m a part of the staff. It is really fun and also encouraging. I feel good once I walk out of that community center and I just think about how it will be when I’m older, being a staff member or something like that.

What I would like to say to other young people is that they should stay in school and get good marks, or try at least, but also that they should get involved in community work because it’s fun and it also looks good on a resume.