Senior of the year volunteers many hours to help children... from the Mountain News, Hamilton, Ontario, June 29, 2007
by Mark Newman
George Foster received the 2007 Hamilton Municipal Senior of the year Award from mayor Fred Eisenberger at the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre June 26. PHOTO BY MARK NEWMAN (Mountain Hamilton Mountain News Photo)
Organizers were getting a little nervous.
It was past 6 p.m. and they wanted to begin piping in the 25 nominees for 2007 Hamilton Municipal Senior of the Year at the awards dinner at the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre June 26, only George Foster had not shown up yet.
Mr. Foster didn't know it, but he was the one selection committee had chosen as senior of the year. Mayor Fred Eisenberger was slated to make the official announcement prior to the dinner after all the nominees had been recognized.
There was a noticeable sigh from some of the organizers when Mr. Foster arrived around 6:20 p.m. accompanied by his wife and one of two daughters.
The long-time east Mountain resident wasn't late on purpose. He was doing the very thing that had earned him senior of the year honours in the first place. He was helping children.
"The (Hamilton Children's Aid Society) called me and said they had an emergency, a child had to be taken to visit her father," said Mr. Foster, who has been a volunteer driver with CAS for the past five years.
Without hesitation, Mr. Foster drove the child and made it back to the dinner only a few minutes after the nominees had been piped in.
"Most of the things I do are for children," said the Stelco retiree, who figures he spends about 20 hours a week doing volunteer work.
Mr. Foster was surprised to learn he had been named senior of the year.
"It's a great honour," he said.
A very active member of St. Michael's Anglican Church for the past 20 years, Mr. Foster has been responsible for recruiting and training readers, intercessors and eucharistic assistants. As a warden at the church he helps with the building's upkeep and the financial well-being of the parish.
Mr. Foster has spent many hours as a volunteer with Sleeping Children Around the World, an organization founded by the late Murray Dryden (father of NHL goalie and MP Ken Dryden), that distributes sleeping kits (mattresses, clothing and school books) to poor children around the world.
In January, Mr. Foster was among a team of volunteers that spent four weeks distributing 7,500 kits to children in Mumbai, India.
Mr. Foster said he is planning to return to Haiti later this year as a member of Men for Mission International, a Christian organization that provides school supplies and other items to Haitian children and missionary workers.
Last October, he helped install a roof on a school in Coup David. To get to the school the 67-year-old Mr. Foster rode several kilometres in the back of a pick-up truck and then hiked another 90 minutes through jungle and Mountains.
For many years Mr. Foster helped organize the Walter Gretzky CNIB Celebrity Golf Tournament and he is the treasurer of the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre's Ukulele Band and often transports band members and equipment.
"He's a very active gentleman who has committed so much to the community," said Carolyn Kovacs, one of the members of the Hamilton Municipal Senior of the Year Awards selection committee. "He's done work both in Hamilton and abroad and I think it epitomizes volunteers and the wonderful experiences that they can have and what they can contribute to the community."
Ms. Kovacs said the 25 nominees is the most ever in the 13 year history of the award.
