Well, here it is, the end of an 8 year era. Josh and I have been together for nearly 21 years. Wow! I don't feel old enough for that to be the case. Our first 13 years together included many moves for school, for work, for school and work. From our humble beginnings in Pincher Creek as teenagers, to Red Deer and Lacombe for me to go to college to Veteran for work to Crossfield for Josh to get his trade at SAIT to Lacombe because we love Central Alberta to Beaverlodge for Josh's work, to Central Alberta because we love it to um... well, truth be told, that's a big question mark right now.
8 years we have called this piece of land between Clive and Tees home. Here's how I know that people can make all the difference in the world. When we first moved here, we knew a lot of people in Lacombe from the 5 or so years we had already lived there off and on. We didn't know many people outside of Lacombe. The beautiful thing about a rural location is the people.
We moved here in July of 2009. In August, being country bumpkins and rodeo lovers all of our lives, we decided to head to the Tees Rodeo for the day. The kids had a blast and we could not believe the way the day seemed to go almost flawlessly with only a few people running around behind the scenes that we could see. We enjoyed the day so much that we went home, grabbed our holiday trailer and took it to the grounds for the night so we could check out the cabaret. Luckily we found some folks that we knew from our dayhome in our previous life and some friends that we had kept in touch with off and on throughout the years. We were so impressed that we hit them up about being a part of the Ag Society because we wanted to help out with this fantastic little rodeo in what appeared to be a open and welcoming community.
Anyone who has lived in a small town or rural area knows that able an willing bodies are becoming more and more few and far between, so we were welcomed with open arms, told when the next meeting was and I am sure they thought they would never see us again. But, we were at the next meeting, and the next and the next. This little community that we were so fortunate to move into gave us some of the best friends in the world. It gave us a place to truly call home. So much so that within a year we were hosting a couple meetings to see if there would be enough interest to start a horse and rodeo 4H club in the area. Our information meeting, we had 8 families show up. We only needed 8 kids to start a club and we had two. From the looks of that meeting we were cooking with gas.
We started our little 4-H club and we created a family. There are no words to say how lucky we are to have had the opportunity to have these people become a part of our lives. This is our 7th year of leading the club and all of our closest friends in the area are 4-H families. We have watched our kids grow together, watched them change, seen them graduate, go off to college and now even getting married. To me, they are all "my" kids.
There is something about living rural that brings out what I believe is the best in people. Having animals to take care of takes a commitment level that not everyone is willing to see through. Wanting to have a community that continues to be a place that you want to call home and teach your children to be involved in isn't something everyone is invested in. I truly believe that people make the difference when you live in the country.
We live in between a village and a hamlet and both have a passionate volunteer base. There are people who show up month after month to keep these little communities viable and relevant so that their kids and grandkids have a place to continue to call home. I am so proud of the contribution we have made to our communities, but moreso, I am proud to call the people who have been doing these things for decades our friends. Without the people who are willing to fundraise, take care of boring business matters on a monthly basis, make tough decisions to keep things going, apply for grants and submit proposals, these rural communities would all become ghost towns.
The people who show up time and again to do these things are the backbone of rural Alberta. They are the backbone of the Agriculture industry in Canada. They are the people who continue to develop and sustain in an economy that is struggling. I believe it is so important to be these people. People who care about something bigger than themselves. People who reach out and work to make their community a viable place. I want our children to be these people. People who start 4-H clubs and bring families with similar interests together. People who are directors on Ag Societies and Community Clubs like the Lions, Rotary, Elks, etc. People who want to make a difference for other people.
When we moved here 8 years ago and decided to grab our proverbial shovels and dig in to do our part to make a difference, we never realized all the ways that it would come back to us. It has tenfold. Our lives are so rich thanks to the relationships we have made through our volunteer work. Our closest friends are those we made through our rural community organizations. Our kids' closest friends are children of our closest friends. I know without a doubt that our kids have numerous adults that they could go to if they were in trouble and they were worried about coming to us as their parents.
Being a community volunteer and rural advocate takes time. It is something that you have to fit in with your jobs, your ranches, your farms, your kids extra-curricular activities. I am here to tell you that it's worth it. The people make the difference. The people have made a difference. I am proud to be someone who works to make a difference, someone who has had the ability to watch some of the local kids grow up and head off into adulthood, someone who knows that those adults will go on to be stewards of their own communities wherever they end up. I don't know yet where our journey is going to take us, but I know that wherever it is, we will grab our shovels and dig in because living rural is different and we want to be a positive part of that difference.
