Kids learn about helicopters, search and rescue and more
Last Friday was a very exciting day for the students at Walter Whyte School. A Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Cormorant helicopter landed at the school and students got to go inside and learn from the three crew members about their work in search and rescue.
Captain Andrew Juvonen, Captain Matt Kralt, and Master Corporal Andrew Poulin are the three RCAF members who stopped by the school in order to bring this unique educational opportunity to our local students.
“It was a wonderful feeling to be able to show the kids from the school an introduction to aviation and search and rescue and highlight the equipment that we use for rescue missions and for training. And again, just highlight all the good work that we do for Canadian citizens all across the country. It’s something that doesn’t normally get seen in the prairie provinces to begin with. The cormorants operate on the West Coast and the East Coast. So, being able to show that to the kids in a rural school is a really neat experience. And hopefully, it inspires a couple of them to pursue a career or something in aviation or search and rescue,” said Andrew Juvonen.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the RCAF and so several units are going to be engaging in outreach opportunities.
This stop was an opportunity that worked out as the three RCAF members were conducting a maintenance transfer that had them travelling through our province and so were able to visit Walter Whyte School on their way by.
Walter Whyte School Principal Gloria Juvonen was very proud to be able to share this opportunity with her students. In preparation for the visit, the school community was able to view a presentation that explained a little bit about the RCAF and what their search and rescue units do.
“We put together a video and some pictures of their training. So, [our students] were able to see an actual video of the training where the guys who are hoisted out of the helicopter let down the stretcher if they have to rescue someone and they’re injured. We talked a lot about the skills they have to have. They’re really strong and they do lots of fitness training. They do lots of parachuting. They have to do underwater scuba diving. They’re very highly skilled people, males and females, we stressed that a lot. We talked a lot about how they also have to have medical skills to be able to help anybody who’s in a situation where it’s dangerous, and we talked about the pilots having lots of skills because they’re flying out in the middle of the North Atlantic,” said Gloria Juvonen.
She hopes that her students take from this that if they are the kind of person that wants a more active career there are many options that they can look into.
“If you have a dream, you have a goal, you work hard, and you’re motivated, you can do all those things. There’s so many opportunities for kids,” said Gloria Juvonen.
Andrew Juvonen hopes that the kids learned more about what the RCAF does.
“From the conversations I’ve had with the principal and the staff and the students while we were there. I think for them, just seeing how, how teamwork is important and how important it is to stay in school. If you want to pursue your dreams and have careers in aviation or search and rescue that it’s important to stay in school and keep looking up,” he said.
Gloria Juvonen said that the kids were very excited and that the visit went over very well.
“Even my older kids were super excited. They wanted to take videos, they wanted to take pictures of the helicopter. One of my kids, he said, ‘I’ve been here for eight years, and it’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened here.’ And I’ve been here for 15 years, and it’s one of the most exciting things that’s ever happened for me, too,” she said.
