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Lacombe Big Brothers Big Sisters introduces Colby Sackett Memorial Scholarship

Scholarship given to committed Grade 12 teen mentors in the community
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The Colby Sackett Memorial Scholarship honours Teen Mentor Colby Sackett, who tragically passed away earlier this year. Photo Submitted by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lacombe and District

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lacombe and District has wanted to have a scholarship program in place for many years and now they will be able to honour one of their teen mentors who tragically passed away early this year.

Colby Sackett, a Grade 12 student from Lacombe and teen mentor for a Grade 2 student at Terrace Ridge, lost his life in a car accident on his birthday in February.

“It was tragic circumstances when he lost his life in an accident on his birthday in February,” BBBS Executive Director Crystal Zens said. “This is a way for us to help the family by remembering Colby and carrying on the good work he did as a young person in this community.”

The Colby Sackett Memorial Scholarship is a $500 for Grade 12 students in Lacombe who have been a committed teen mentor for BBBS.

“We have several teen mentors this year that qualify to apply,” Zens said. “We had an amazing team member, Colby Sackett, who passed away in February. This is a way to remember him and carry on his legacy of community spirit and volunteering.

“We have named the scholarship in his honour and the family accepted. It is a very special scholarship for our agency because he was an awesome teen mentor in our program.”

Zens said Sackett developed a strong relationship with his little brother Jace.

“Colby came to us in the fall and he was a Grade 12 student,” she said. “He was very interesting in policing, along with community involvement and volunteering. We recruited him to be a teen mentor at Terrace Ridge School with a little boy in Grade 2. They quickly hit it off and bonded fast.

“He was an awesome team person and had very strong character. He always had a huge smile on his face and was very positive.”

Zens said Sackett would often come up with creative and artistic ideas for his time with Jace and was also a strong supporter of the BBBS vision.

“He was also a great advocate for our program and referred other teenagers to us,” Zens said. “He was going to help us with our kids and cops program and had recently been accepted into the Criminal Justice Program at Lethbridge College. That was his dream to be a police officer and we were excited for him to be involved.

“He definitely was a successful Grade 12 student and this is a way we can carry his legacy forward and have other teenagers to strive to live a life like Colby did.”

Zens said the application for scholarship is a simple one and the successful candidate will be a committed teen mentor.

“You need to have integrity, strong character and a big heart to give back and be involved in the your community just like Colby,” she said.

Voting ends on June 30th and the application can be found at lacombe.bigbrothersbigsisters.ca.

“It should be easy for the Grade 12 students to fill out easily. We facilitated a bottle drive in the winter to help fund the scholarship and moving forward during our Great Big events, we will take offerings towards the scholarship,” Zens said.

She added BBBS is always looking for new teen mentors.

“We have kids on the wait list who are mostly little brothers,” she said.



todd.vaughan@lacombeexpress.com

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