To look at this year's Golden Girl, Avril King, you'd think she never had a care in the world. Always smiling, she's a joy to be around, and that's lucky because she's around a lot.
King, who has battled cancer four times including another bout last fall, is the consummate volunteer. She just does it because it feels good. And like most of her fellow Golden Girls, she's surprised she was chosen for the award.
"It's quite an honour. I'm not really sure I'm deserving of it. It's really rewarding to work for the community," King shared.
This pleasant woman has been part of the fabric of the Sunshine Coast for the past 61 years; she came to Wilson Creek as a child of 10 from England in 1949.
"We were a family of six and my uncle was a family of four. It was a great time to come to the Coast," she explained.
Her family settled on her uncle's truck farm directly across from the Wilson Creek Plaza. It was a different world for kids back then. Everyone walked everywhere and youngsters could hitchhike without their parents having to worry. She chuckled that at the time, there were 14 bridges between Gibsons and Sechelt.
"You could tell the car by the rattle. If we got in somebody's old truck we pushed it halfway to Gibsons," she remembered.
It was from her parents that King caught the volunteering bug. Her folks helped out at the Legion and their church, St. Bart's in Gibsons.
"I taught Sunday School as a teenager," King related.
She was part of the first wave of students to graduate from the new Elphinstone Secondary School. Her dream was to teach, but life intervened and instead she married Murray, a union that's lasted 54 years and produced son Wayne, daughter Trish, two grandsons and a granddaughter.
After spending many years in the Abbots-ford area with Avril working primarily in the accounting field, the Kings came back to their roots in 1992 (King Road in Gibsons is named in honour of Murray's family).
While she lived in the Fraser Valley, Avril got involved in the local hospital auxiliary. In order to accommodate people who worked during the day, the group met in the evenings, an idea Avril would like to see duplicated in Gibsons. As with many organizations, the local hospital auxiliary could use an injection of younger people, and by holding evening meetings, Avril thinks more people could volunteer.
Like most of her forebears in the exclusive Golden Girls society, Avril volunteers for many different organizations. In addition to the 40-plus years she's devoted to hospital auxiliaries (she's a lifetime member), Avril bakes for the local seniors' centre, Harmony Hall, her church and other groups that need her culinary expertise.
She's the "recycled" president of the Gibsons chapter of hospital auxiliary, the treasurer of the hospital gift shop (run jointly by the six auxiliary chapters on the Coast) and a volunteer at the Thrift Shop in Sechelt.
"And of course we fundraise," she said.
And do they ever - $12,000 per year for the past several years has been raised at the annual Girls Night Out in Gibsons and the auxiliaries together raise about $300,000 per year at the Thrift Shop. But, she stresses, there's always room for more to join these amazing citizens.
"Get out there and [volunteer]. You really don't know what you're missing - the friendships, the activities are so rewarding," Avril said.
