TIMMINS - Local residents helping make the city a great place to live have picked up some new hardware.
On Nov. 25, the Rotary Club of Timmins-Porcupine and Rick Lemieux received the 2024 YMCA Peace Medal at the YMCA on Poplar Street. The award recognizes peace-makers in the community.
YMCA Timmins regional manager Courtney Berlinghoff presented the awards and nominated both recipients.
“Each recipient exemplifies the values of peace, participation, empathy, advocacy, community, and empowerment,” she said in an email to TimminsToday.
The Rotary Club of Timmins-Porcupine is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.
“There is certainty a lot of need in the community, and we’re doing our part,” said club president Ross MacIvor.
The club’s larger projects, like the youth exchange program, are built on the goal of getting to know other cultures and fostering peace that way, but that cultural sharing can happen at home as well.
“One of the big things in Rotary is global understanding,” said MacIvor.
The club is working on the Adopt-a-Senior program, providing gifts to seniors in long-term care and the hospital over the holidays.
Lemieux has also been busy this holiday season.
He helped Santa at the city’s tree lighting ceremony, continues to work with the local DARE program, appears at events like TimminsCon as Batman and Deadpool, and helps with fundraisers through his work in the stand-up comedy scene.
He said finding something he loves and volunteering through that makes putting in the time easier.
“If you’re involved in something that you enjoy, it’s going to be easier for you to volunteer your time and get out in the community and help people,” he said. “There’s so many opportunities for people to get involved.”
He is currently passing that wisdom and more on to future generations of police officers at Northern College, where he's been teaching since retiring from the Timmins Police Service four years ago. In January, he’s launching the I Know My Rights comedy show to raise money for the Cochrane District Crime Stoppers.
The YMCA Peace Medal was introduced in 1987 and has been awarded to over 1,100 people and organizations.
