Several residents of the southeast received recognition at the Manitoba Volunteer Awards Ceremony last week.

A group of women who call themselves the St. Malo Quilters were among those honored at the event. Spokesperson Irene Catellier says her group of nine volunteers were awarded the Premier’s Volunteer Service Award for their time spent making quilts for the Alzheimers Society.

“We started doing this because there was a need there,” explains Catellier, “Alzheimer's is allover and it's sad and painful because you can’t reach them after a while… so we want them to have something they can touch and see to help them remember things.”

Catellier and the other volunteers make an effort to put as many buttons, zippers, and pictures onto their quilts as possible. She notes that the designs of an intricate quilt can help those with Alzheimer's recall their memories more accurately.

According to Catellier, her group has already fashioned roughly 3,500 quilts, and says her fellow women show signs of stopping: “We’re still as gung-ho about it as when we first started because we’ve seen and heard so many reports saying how much they’re enjoying it.”

A second award was given to St. Labre resident Joel Grenier who received one of six of the Lieutenant Governer’s Make a Difference in the Community Awards.

Grenier felt privileged to have been able to meet Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba Janice Filmon (Submitted by Mariette Kirouac).

Grenier has a few notches of volunteerism under his belt, including the organization of a local festival.

“I’ve been heavily involved with St. Labre 200 [festival] since the beginning,” offers Grenier, “We developed it, built it, created it from nothing, and now we’ve fundraised over $92,000 for the communities around us.”

In addition to that, Grenier has spent recent months spearheading welding and go-kart building workshops at the nearby schools, and managing the volunteer fire department for Woodridge as the District Fire Chief.

Despite these efforts, Grenier admits he was quite surprised to win an award.

“It’s amazing, it was a very humble evening. Meeting the Honorable [Lieutenant Governor] Janice Filmon was quite the event. She was very personable and you could tell she had read my background story.”

Similarly, Nick Paulet of Steinbach was also honored with the Lieutenant Governer’s Make a Difference Community Award. This recognition came for his 15 years as a volunteer and race director of the Winnipeg Police Half Marathon; a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Meanwhile, Paulet was also given the prestigious Lieutenant Governer’s Vice-Regal Award for the same service, of which only one is given every year.