Almost every week when I arrive home from our Interact Club meeting (high school Rotary Club), the minutes, including a complete “To Do” list for all members, are on my computer. This happens thanks to Anna Bunce, our Interact Secretary.

When I think of Anna, I think of the old saying, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” Whether it’s her work with the Interact Club, students’ council, her school’s Global Action Committee, her responsibility as editor of the school newspaper, her weekly dance classes, her leadership position with REACH (Realizing Exploitation Actually Causes Harm), her 15 hours a week job at a movie theatre or her extra writing class every week at Malaspina University-College, everything gets 110 percent of her focus and energy. Speaking about writing, Anna is now a regular columnist in More Living Magazine. Look for her there. I think you’ll like what she has to say.

I was about to say that Anna is an extraordinary teenager but, from my experience working with teenagers over the past several years, that wouldn’t be true. Anna is an exceptional human being it’s true but there are many other teenagers just as impressive, all in their own way. Many of them are members of the Nanaimo Interact Club and you’ll learn more about them soon as they are about to launch their second annual, Your Move Campaign to raise money for AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe.

Anna says that like most of us she feels she always had the ability to make a difference but shyness and fear of failure usually prevented her from actually taking that first step toward making things happen until she was in Grade 6 that is. That’s when they formed a Charity Committee at her school and she had an idea to organize a book sale as a fundraiser. They made $500 and she started seeing herself as a leader, someone willing to take a risk to make good things happen.

However, when she started high school, the same old fear and shyness took over once again. Finally she stepped forward in Grade 9 and she hasn’t stopped since.

Anna’s message to all younger students applies equally well to adults; don’t let shyness or fear of failure get in your way, as the NIKE ad says, “Just Do It”. The worst thing that can happen, she says, is that it won’t work out and then all you have to do is move on and do something else.

Toward the end of our conversation, Anna told me more about REACH. This program is organized by a group of high school students who reach out to Grades 8 and 9 students to educate them about child sexual exploitation in an effort to prevent them from falling prey to it. Anna and I are going to do our best to find the young woman who started this program a few years ago. We want to thank her for what she has done and to let her know that her efforts to prevent child prostitution in our community are still paying dividends. I’ll let you know if we find her.