It was hard to catch up to this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Linda Kempt because she is always on the go.
Helping others out comes naturally to her, starting when her and her husband first moved to Lacombe. They settled into an apartment above what is now NOWCO Home Hardware and befriended some older residents that lived on their own.
A longtime Lacombe resident, Kempt has been active for many years around the town with the Kinnette’s, her church group and the local Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE) Canada.
Her volunteering isn’t restricted to just organizations around town. She also finds herself driving around Lacombe, dropping off lunches, picking up groceries, she’s even been known to fix a TV or two and mow a lawn.
Which she all genuinely loves. She says the people she helps quickly become friends and soon she finds herself checking in regularly and becoming invested in their family and lives.
“When you’re retired your life is different when you don’t go to work everyday,” she says. “You have things you do and I do things for other people and you have to do more than one thing.”
True to her word, Kempt has more than one thing on her plate at any given moment.
She also has a book sharing group, where she keeps tracks of authors and recommendations and who has read what, she spear heads a crafting group that meets one a month and somehow manages to find time to go to the gym and relax with a good book.
“I want to thank my friends for their support by nominating me, lots of people have supported me over the years” she says simply. “When you give to the community, the community gives back.”