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Nine months with Katimavik gives Flanagan opportunity to
mentor high school students, pick PEI pumpkins
Dan Schwab
Anyone who .thinks the only way to
happiness is to earn a lot of money
can learn a few things from Beech -
wood's Martin Flanagan.
The 19 -year-old returned
June 17 from a nine-month
sion that took him across
central and eastern
Canada, working a va-;
riety of jobs in the Kati-
mavik program. -
Although the jobs he
landed were only on a
volunteer basis, Flana-
gan earned more than
money. He brought
back home with him a
wealth of . experience
and dozens of friend-
ships made along the
way.
Flanagan's adventure
began in September
when Katimavik or-
ganizers suited the re-
sults of his application
to a job at an off-site high
school called Second Chances in Port
Colborne, Ont:
He worked with teenage drop -outs
who were taking the first step back
into getting an education.
"It was kind of intense sometiunes,"
Flanagan says. "We dealt with a
lot of kids with all different back-
grounds and histories. A lot of them
were on welfare living on their own,
pregnant, or just out of jail."
Flanagan worked one-on-one with
some students who had trouble with
reading and comprehension, spend-
ing 35 hours a week at the school.
He says that while there was initial
reluctance to his mentoring among
some of the harder cases, the stu-
dents eventually warmed up to him
and they all showed great progress,
home
excur-
which counted for course recovery
credits toward a diploma.
"They were kids with good hearts
that just had a bad hand dealt to
them in life and took a few wrong
turns," he says. "But they were there
because they want to get back to
high school and be with their class-
mates."
`It was kind o
intense
sometimes.
We dealt with a
lot of kids with
all different'
background
and
histories,' --
in Flana
.�j
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While in Port Col-
borne, he shared a
house with nine other
volunteers of the Kati-
mavik program, with
their food and other ne-
cessities paid for with
federal funding.
In January, Flanagan
headed to Quebec City
and took up a new vo-
cation as a custodian.
He admits that al-
though it wasn't as
glamorous as his for-
mer teen mentor posi-
tion, he grew to espe-
cially enjoy the people
he was working with.
Throughout his daily
duties of mopping the floors of a com-
munity centre and cleaning the snow
off an outdoor skating rink, Flana-
gan was joined by a working group
of adults with special needs.
Although they hardly spoke a word
of English and Flanagan- knew very
little French, he says he struck up an
immediate bond with the contented
group.
"They were a hoot," he says. "We
had a lot of fun together."
For his final volunteering job,
Flanagan flew to P.E.I., where he
spent his days in
an elementary
school in a small
town called Alber-
ton.
He tutored stu-
dents with their
math and literacy
lessons, as well as
during gym class-
es.
On weekends,
Flanagan and the
Katimavik group
continued their
commitment to
volunteering,
from building a
wake boarding
board at an urban'
fringe festival -
Charlottetown to
helping a farmer
pick pumpkins in
his field.
"The biggest
highlight of . the
trip was probably
the people I met,"
Flanagan says,
adding that other
Katimavik volun-
teersin his group
came from B.C.,
Alberta and Que-
bec.
The program matches young people
ages 17-21 from rural and urban ar-
eas and from different family income
levels into groups.
Although a person can only volun-
teer with the Ka-
timavik program
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Martin Flanagan
once, Flanagan says it helped him
figure out what career path he'd like
to take in the future.
This fall, he'll be attending Fan-
shawe College in London to study
the recreation and leisure program.
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