Holly and Myles are Jr. Citizens of the Year
By Peter EppWednesday January 21, 2004
Myles McLellan and Holly Ringrose
Chatham This Week - Holly Ringrose and Myles McLellan are among a select few. The Chatham youngsters will be honoured as Ontario Junior Citizens of the Year at the annual convention of the Ontario Com-munity Newspaper Association (OCNA), to be held in Toronto on March 5.
Holly and Myles are among 12 "finalists" or winners, and were among 158 children from across the province to be nominated.
Junior Citizens are youngsters, ages six to 17, who have provided an important contribution to their communities.
In the case of Holly, the 10-year-old Tecumseh Public School student has for the past several years raised money for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Myles, also 10, and a student at Our Lady of Fatima School, has been fighting a debilitating illness for almost two years, but has worked to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society, and has also worked to raise awareness about cancer.
Both youngsters were nominated by readers of Chatham This Week, a member newspaper of the OCNA, which is the Ontario Junior Citizen sponsor.
Anne Lannan, the manager of member services for the OCNA, says the Junior Citizen program was introduced in 1981 and has traditionally been given the support of the lieutenant-governor of Ontario. This year, both Holly and Myles will be meeting personally with Lt.-Gov. James Bartleman at a banquet held on the evening of March 5 at the Inn on the Park in Toronto.
Lannan says their day will begin with a tour of Queen's Park that morning, at which time they'll meet with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Dr. Marie Bountrogianni.
"It's a fairly large honour," Lannan says of the children who are Junior Citizen of the Year finalists. "And that's especially so when you consider that these 12 finalists represent children from across the entire province."
Joining Holly and Myles as an Ontario Junior Citizen will be 16-year-old Christopher Beausoleil of Tilbury, also one of the final 12. Beausoleil was nominated by a reader of the Tilbury Times, also a member of the OCNA.
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