According to the organization that teaches people how to save lives, nobody does it better than we do.
The Lifesaving Society of Alberta and the Northwest Territories presented St. Albert with five first-place awards last week. The awards not only represent how well the city performs in conducting the society’s programs, but it also marks another step up in how many awards that it gets.
Monique St. Louis, the city’s recreation services director, calls it “an escalation in the number of awards that we’re winning, which is growing.”
In 2007, the city received one award and two in 2008. The following two years, it won three awards.
This year, St. Albert won in five out of 20 categories for a city with a population of less than 100,000. The awards were for conducting Lifesaving Society programs, the BOAT program, the Swim for Life programs, Lifesaving First Aid programs and for accumulating the highest point total of Canadian Swim Patrol candidates.
The last two were awarded to the city for the first time this year. The judging is based on the last calendar year.
St. Albert also received high marks in a number of other categories, with points allotted to reflect the relative degree of difficulty or amount of training and effort required to achieve each level including the programming time and commitment.
“It’s a real honour for us. Obviously, we’re thrilled to get these awards,” said St. Louis. “We work closely with the Lifesaving Society. They’re a great group and a great support. To me, it just reinforces the good work and the good service that we do for our citizens.”
The Lifesaving Society is a national non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to preventing drowning and water-related incidents by providing public education and lifesaving, lifeguarding, and leadership programs.
To learn more about the society or what it offers, call 780-415-1755 or visit www.lifesaving.org. For more information on the City’s recreational programs, please visit www.stalbert.ca/programs.
