"I think Kayla is a wonderful example of modern youth. She is active, involved and committed to her community and her peers."

Those were the first words Joan Parsons wrote when she nominated Kayla Stennes as today's Neighbourhood Hero.

You may know Joan, another Neighbourhood Hero in her own right. She started the RRID program (Rid Roads of Impaired Drivers) after three members of her family were killed by drunk drivers in three separate accidents. Another was left in critical condition.

Joan first met Kayla when she began volunteering with the DRIVE program (Demonstrating Responsibility In Vehicle Education), which Joan facilitates.

As part of the program Joan had been passing around an album containing photographs of over eighty people of all ages who were killed by drunk drivers.

Kayla was impressed with the effectiveness of the overall program but asked Joan if she would like to have the photographs transferred to a PowerPoint presentation rather than just passing the album around.

Once the photos were scanned, appropriate backgrounds selected and music added, a task that involved dozens of Kayla's volunteer hours, the DRIVE presentation became even more powerful. But once the PowerPoint presentation was done, why did Kayla want to remain involved?

"You see all across the papers that kids are dying from car crashes," she told me, "and it's so preventable. I just want to help with that and get some awareness out there at least in our town ... The kids that are out there speeding are generally good kids who are making bad decisions. They are just uneducated about dangers and risk taking."

Kayla's involvement with the DRIVE program was not the only reason Joan wanted to see her acknowledged as a Neighbourhood Hero. She was nominated because of her general commitment to her community and peers and because of her amazing time management skills, skills shared with a high percentage of today's high school students, skills that are definitely far advanced from those of students in my generation.

Joan spoke to me effusively about Kayla but Kayla is reluctant to talk about herself. In fact she tended to make all she does sound rather mundane. She certainly doesn't see herself as any kind of "hero".

A Grade 12 student and future teacher, Kayla has worked hard to maintain her status as an honour student at Dover Bay Secondary School. She has also been active in a variety of extra curricular activities including playing in the school band for the past five years. But that only takes about forty or so hours a week, just enough to her warmed up.

For the past two years or so Kayla has also been working fifteen or more hours a week in the meat department at The Real Canadian SuperStore as well as volunteering as a Candy Striper at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital where, on occasion, she gets to play her flute for patients.

Joan told me about Kayla's devotion to her grandfather who is in a nursing home and how she has developed relationships with many of the other residents but Kayla made it sound like she wasn't doing enough and she never mentioned her volunteer work with the BC Summer Games in Nanaimo in 2002 or the three years she has cooked hamburgers during the BC Amateur Golf Tournament.

"She does all of this volunteer work with a great smile and a 'can do' attitude," Joan concluded. "To me she represents all the best qualities of modern youth."