Grade 12 Stelly’s Secondary Student, Katrina Jones sure is one busy girl who loves to give back.
Her volunteering journey began when she joined 4H, which is a youth development group that is focussed on agriculture and public speaking — which helps to build youth confidence.
4H has allowed Jones to volunteer at many places, including the Saanich Fairground, at hospital visits and more.
Jones currently does judging or works with other members of the local 4H club. She was the president of the Saanich Lamb Club, a position that just ended at the start of the new year.
That work saw her volunteering at most of the club events, working with the kids.
Jones also volunteers with the Queer Straight Alliance at Stelly’s Secondary School, a group designed to help make the school a safer place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. They take part in projects like a day of silence against bullying, suicide awareness projects and give presentations to Planning 10 classes, psychology classes and social justice classes to educate them on gay rights.
“It’s something that I just ended up doing and then I realized that I really enjoy doing it and the things that I volunteer for are things that I really truly care about,” she said.
Those things she truly cares about include volunteering at her school to raise awareness for mental health issues — which are faced often by LGBT students.
She said she also really cares about working in the 4H club with the kids.
“I remember being a young kid just joining 4H and how much I wanted to have an older member really help us along and help us have a great experience in 4H,” she explained, “and so it’s really important to me to give that experience to the younger members, because I’ve been there before.”
Jones said it was pretty exciting to be a nominee this year for the Hearts of the Community Awards.
“It’s really nice that somebody has nominated me and noticed that I’ve been doing this volunteer work. It’s nice to be appreciated for doing that work.”
Following high school, Jones said she plans on attending the University of Kings College’s foundation year program and will continue with her volunteer work no matter where she lands.