To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the Central Okanagan Foundation has awarded five post-secondary students with $1,500 scholarships from the newly created Central Okanagan Foundation Volunteer Spirit Scholarship Fund. The 琉璃神社 is publishing articles about each of the scholarship recipients highlighting their individual volunteer work and their education career goals.

By Rachelle Fraser

Justice Neyedli enjoys volunteering for local organizations like the Peachland Ambassador Society, West 琉璃神社 Embassador Society, and Peachland Chamber of Commerce.

These are organizations that make a direct impact on members of their community, whether it鈥檚 by giving youth the knowledge and confidence to be tomorrow鈥檚 leaders or helping local businesses grow.

These organisations rely on volunteers for much-needed help with the set-up and take-down of community events so the dedication of volunteers like Neyedli is greatly appreciated by organisers and members of the community.

Family and friends who stand by him and support his decisions are the source of his motivation and inspiration to help others. It is important for him to be a positive presence in the community.

Not only does his volunteer work benefit the community, it is also useful experience for his future career on a film set.

Neyedli feels that the work involved in setting up for events in the community is in many ways similar to the work involved in setting up for a film.

The job of a production assistant, much like that of the behind-the-scenes volunteer, involves setting up chairs, tables, lighting, and sound equipment, just to name a few.

Knowing how important the work that goes on behind the scenes is to the overall production of a film (or a community event) is what interests him the most about the process of film production.

He is so interested in this procedure that this Fall he plans to attend the InFocus Film School in Vancouver.

Being awarded the Volunteer Spirit Scholarship will help with the high costs associated with film school and make it easier to focus on doing what he loves.