A dedicated volunteer is the first recipient of the Apple Pie Society award in Williams Lake.
Williams Lake Cross Country Ski Club board member Robin Dawes was recognized for her tireless efforts toward improvements at Bull Mountain Cross Country Ski Trails.
“One thing I wanted to mention is a thing of this magnitude does not happen without a lot of very enthusiastic people who were working hard,” Dawes said after she was presented with an apple pie freshly baked by Joanne Wright.
In recent years the club obtained funding and built a new lodge, an equipment building, a gazebo, installed solar panels, purchased a piston bully and snow machine and started a successful ski school for students.
“”I’m really pleased and I love the idea that they are recognizing not just me but the entire board. We had such an absolutely wonderful team,” she said. “Everybody really worked together. It took several years.”
Bette McLennan, one of the members of the newly-formed Apple Pie Society, told Dawes “from all accounts you have done something wonderful for the community whether they are skiers or not.”
Dawes said after the 2017 wildfires, many areas were impacted, including Bull Mountain, and there was a need to improve outdoor education activities so they applied for some Canadian Red Cross funding.
With the funding the ski club did a pilot project, offering a cross-country ski school with equipment for students in School District 27.
When the ski school took off, she said that helped their chances in obtaining bigger grants.
“We had funding through Red Cross for three classes and we actually ended up serving four classes that year and now we are booked solid - when we have snow.”
Incidentally, the COVID-19 pandemic also helped as cross country skiing was still open to youth because it was outdoors.
The students would arrive at Bull Mountain and spend almost five hours a day.
“They were 100 per cent outside for three years,” she added.
Even social distancing rules meant the students were filed through two at a time inside the warming hut to get their ski equipment.
When Dawes had moved to Williams Lake at the end of 2015 and joined the club, the board had created a five-year plan and one of the primary goals was to find funding for a storage building for a snow machine. Dawes was instrumental in making this happen, along with the new daylodge and other improvements.
“I’d never done any grant writing, and I guess I made a few mistakes because it took a while. We were doing quite well with small grants, but not the bigger ones,” Dawes said.
McLennan, and other members Linda Isfeld and Cathy Walsh, said the Apple Pie Society plans to give out a few awards each year and will announce the next recipient in June.
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