Oliver Chronicle bursary award winner Rebekah Thomas is all smiles after accepting from editor Lyonel Doherty during a special awards ceremony at Frank Venables Theatre on June 14. (Leza Macdonald photo)
(The following is the winning application letter that SOSS graduate Rebekah Thomas submitted for the Chronicle’s $1,000 bursary.)
When asked to define myself, I don’t know where to start: the good or the bad?
A graduating, chronic-anxiety victim; a neurotic intellect; or quite simply, a passionate leader. You could take any three of these definitions for their meaning, but I tend to think they all melt together as an abstract personality. Aside from fatal flaws, I can honestly say I am well above average in school grades, ranging around 80 to 90 percent, and work hard at everything I do.
I am lucky to be employed at Oliver Parks and Recreation Society, regularly instructing kids’ programs and helping people to let go and have fun in the midst of a cultured community. I help out at River Road Country Market, a family-run farm that has just begun its pursuit to success; furthermore, I enjoy helping out here as I find it educational in so many meaningful ways.
Agriculture excites me with the concept of growing and nurturing something as small as a grain of sand, into something so beneficial and vital to our species’ survival. The luck of the draw in having a good life: that is what I’ve got. I am so lucky to be where I am with a family of six, a gorgeous English Pointer, a couple of cats, and coop full of hens. I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given in my community, school, and church; all of which being beneficial to creating generous tendencies in my personality, and all of which teaching me to love unconditionally. I regularly help out in Park Drive Church’s Sunday school program to incorporate children in my Christian community so they can feel loved. I also have annually participated in the volunteering of “Aid Stations” in Oliver’s Marathons and Half-Irons. So many volunteer opportunities and experiences have made me question the intent I hold over the rest of my life, my fate.
I should be prideful of good grades and focused on being a ‘Brainiac’, but I’m not. The truth I believe there is so much more. I believe this world could add up to so much more, whether you’re talking about vanquishing poverty or discrimination. I believe that we can do more than ‘go to a good school, get a good job, and pay our bills’.
This world was created with so many nations, differences, textures, and problems for a reason. They are all here to be mentally tackled, solved, or accepted. And I know that there are those out there who hold the same passion as I do in shaking our upside-down world, I just know it. I am with them, and together we recite William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”, because we are not afraid. I am here to initiate change. Is that statement one to be found in arrogant? –I hope not. Because I know that there are people out there who need beyond need that we’ve ever experienced in this Western culture.
My goals for next year include the Not-For-Profit Leadership program at Summit Pacific College in Abbotsford, BC. This four-year program is one of the first of its kind and will teach business aspects as well as ministry. I intend on obtaining the skills required to help be the change that others, and myself, so badly want to see in our world.
This program will cost me around fifteen-thousand dollars a year, but I will take away so much. I wholeheartedly believe that this is a good place to start in pursuing the dreams I’ve outlined to you, and I hope you do too. This program will equip me with the ability to take opportunities as they come, and direct them to higher operatives. It will show me how to be clever AND charitable in using creative methods of helping others.
My father is a Pastor, and my mother is an MOA. Together, they have loyally raised me with all the effort they can offer to myself and my three younger siblings. They are my heroes because even after I leave this fall to begin my journey in the Not-For-Profit sector, and despite any financial strain they’ve experienced, they will always love and support me to the fullest of their ability. I ask you, consider my plead. I know that I am very lucky to be where I am and don’t deserve one-thousand dollars toward my education, but I ask that nevertheless of whether or not you award it to me, that you understand how I want to help people. Quite literally my ‘Universal Dream’, is to be where I am needed, help people to focus on thriving instead of surviving, educate and nurture those who aren’t considered to be important, and help people to see the good in this world. I promise I will not give up on the world, nor will I fail in any hopes you have for me.
Sincerely, Rebekah Thomas
