The Gimli Rotary Club presented one of its members with a significant award to recognize his service to the club and the community.
Club members presented Anders Kuusselka with a Paul Harris Fellow Award from Rotary International.
The award recognizes Kuusselka’s “tangible and significant assistance” to the club, which contributes to the betterment of the local community.
Kuusselka is a retired Gimli High School teacher who still subs from time to time, continues to work with youth in the community and sits on the board of the Gimli Youth Hub, which plans to build a youth centre near the Gimli Recreation Centre.
He said he was excited when he learned he would be receiving the award.
“I’m so pleased the Rotary Club went out of their way to nominate me. This was a total surprise,” said Kuusselka, who founded the Wave Youth Club (middle school kids) and oversees the Interact Youth Club (high school kids), which falls under the aegis of the Rotary club. “I’m hoping this will help promote all the work that’s being done in Gimli for our youth and how the Rotary Club contributes to that. Our club is small but we do a lot in the community.”
The Rotary club, which has 26 members, has been active in Gimli for over 50 years. Some of the recent Rotary projects include Operation Red Nose and planting trees in Gimli Park.
Kuusselka started the Wave Youth Club a number of years ago to provide activities for middle years students and to teach them leadership and community service skills. The Interact kids help Kuusselka and his team with the Wave kids, organizing and supervising activities such as basketball and volleyball games, bowling, field trips and music.
“I’m so proud of our high school kids; they are the backbone of the Interact club. They are so good at working with the younger kids, serving as leaders and role models,” said Kuusselka. “And I think the younger kids really appreciate having someone who’s a few years older than them. They look up to them and really pay attention.”
There are about 20 students from the high school who help out with Wave programs. And some of the students, such as Vira, Liuba, Logan, Nate and Gage, have been very “faithful,” never having missed a day of volunteering with the younger kids, he said.
Among the Interact and Wave’s adult volunteers are David and Sharon, DeeDee, Debra, Rhonda, Rick and Diane, Edwin, Autumn, Kelly, Danielle, and Rudi and Elida – all of them stalwart supporters of the clubs, helping supervise the kids and run the music program.
Music rehearsals are held in Kuusselka’s garage, which he converted into a rehearsal studio for the high school students. The middle years students rehearse at the Bayview Church. Both music groups are supervised by adults.
Gimli High School and Dr. George Johnson Middle School provides space for both the Wave and the Interact clubs while the youth hub committee works on getting the youth centre built.
“The Rotary Club appreciates the schools for letting us have space in their buildings. In the high school, the Interact Club can use the sewing room. And in the middle school the Wave has use of the gymnasium and another space to do arts and crafts and play games,” said Kuusselka.
In addition to the schools helping the clubs, Kuusselka said the local Sobey’s and Co-op food stores donate snacks. And Beach Boy Restaurant helps them in the summer with the Snack Shack on Gimli Beach, which is staffed by Wave kids and volunteers with food handling certificates. Any supplies the Wave can’t buy locally is purchased for them by Beach Boy.
“It’s so awesome. These local businesses are so supportive of our programs. They’ve been doing that for years,” he said.
The Rotary Club is welcoming new volunteers, especially younger people, to help make a difference in the community. The Wave Youth Club has about 30-40 kids taking part, and Kuusselka said they’d like to have four adult supervisors at events.
“The Rotary club doesn’t have a huge number of members and we’d like to get more people volunteering and helping us organize activities and programs for our youth, as well as supervising the kids,” said Kuusselka. “We’d love to see younger members join us because most of us are retired.”
Gimli resident Bill Martin, who said he’s interested in joining the Rotary club, said Kuusselka’s award is well deserved.
“Anders is a wonderful person. He runs the Wave Youth Club. He’s helping get the Gimli Youth Hub built and teaches the kids music,” said Martin. “He’s a modest man, but he really inspires people and raises enthusiasm.”
