Sarah Foottit, Beth Mattioli and Jadacia Barker will represent Quesnel at a variety of events for the next year after being crowned the 2020 Quesnel Ambassadors earlier this month.
On July 4, Foottit, Mattioli and Barker received their sashes, capes and tiaras at the conclusion of the Quesnel Ambassadors Leadership Program Pageant Night held at the Chuck Mobley Theatre, which this year was a mostly virtual event due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicole Proudfoot won the Bob Graham Award for showing a positive attitude, working hard toward personal growth and being excited to volunteer as well as the Speech Award, while Melinda Jaggernath won the award for Most Improved Speech. Tayla Sherstan won the Friendship Award, which is voted on by all the candidates while Mattioli won the Knowledge Award and Foottit won the Talent Award.
The pageant night and the speech and talent night were both streamed live over Facebook, an achievement program co-ordinator Rose Scott is proud of.
“We did the best we could with what we had and we had no one to follow because we were the first program in B.C. to actually even try to do this live streaming so we definitely were pioneers in so many ways,” said Scott.
“Most of the programs either suspended for awhile or completely cancelled for the year and we were the ones who said ‘nope we’re gonna do it we’re gonna do the best we can’ and that’s what we did.”
In a typical year the Billy Barker Days festival would be the first major event the ambassadors would attend however, with that event and many others being cancelled due to to COVID-19 and for the safety of the program participants, Scott says it may be some time before the program takes part in public events.
“Typically their first big event would be Billy Barker Days that would be their huge event for the year, obviously that’s cancelled and all of the programs that are supposed to be having awards aren’t doing that right now they’ve all cancelled until October, so there’s not much going on this summer,” said Scott.
“We have been asked to do a few things in the city but we have to have clarification from parents before we can move forward in regards to any personal contact between our ambassadors and the general public and whether they want their child to be vulnerable to that type of situation.”
Scott says while the pandemic has disrupted some of the usual activities of the program the 2019 ambassadors and candidates have done a wonderful job of overcoming the hurdles that have been put in front of them this year and she is proud of the growth they have all shown.
“We want to thank all our 2019 ambassadors for being excellent representatives of the city of Quesnel and we hope that our new ambassadors have a memorable year and that they continue to grow with the program.”
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