MELFORT — Youth 18 and under in Melfort may now be receiving tickets for positive contributions to the community through a Youth Positive Ticketing program.
Tickets can be redeemed for a free admission to the Northern Lights Palace Pool during a public swim period, a free Buddy Burger or a Root Beer Float from Melfort A&W, or a free F’Real Milkshake from the Prairie North Co-op Gas Bar and C-Store.
The tickets are issued under a new pilot program from the City of Melfort, fire department, Melfort Ambulance Service and RCMP.
The three organizations keep tickets and will hand them out to community youth seen being helpful, safe, courteous and respectful in the community.
“So if we see youth wearing bicycle helmets, for example, or obeying the rules of the road when they’re riding their bikes, or helping other children or younger children, or helping a senior citizen out – just being good ambassadors to the community,” said Jason Everitt, Melfort’s fire chief. “So they’re out there and representing what we would like to see in our community and just being great examples of citizens that we know that they are.”
This goal of the program is to show youth that it pays to be good citizens – that rewarding good behaviour in youth will encourage others.
“We want to see our youth be safe and become ambassadors and good citizens of the community, and we think this is just one way to recognize that behaviour that’s here already and creating those positive connections.”
Currently there are 300 tickets to be given away. The tickets can be redeemed until the end of the calendar year.
“We’re not sure if that’s going to be enough or too many, but we’ll determine that at the close of the year,” Everitt said. “The recipients have and will continue to issue them up until the end of the year.”
At the end of the year the program will be assessed and revaluated.
“If we go through the 300 halfway through the summer we’ll take a look at that and hopefully we can get some more printed. We want to recognize the great things our youth are doing and we think this is a valuable tool for that and it creates positive interaction, which is another goal of ours as well.”
The program has sponsorship from the city, A&W, Munro Health and Safety Services as well as the Prairie North Co-op.
