A BIG congratulations goes out to one of our longstanding volunteers, Matt Horst, for being one of this year’s recipients of the J. Douglas Earthy Community Service Award.
On November 21, 2022, the Kiwanis Club presented three individuals with the Earthy Award. Matt was recognized alongside Karen Hoffman of the London Intercommunity Health Centre and Deborah Ratz of Life*Spin. Congratulations to all three remarkable community citizens!
The Earthy Award was established in 1999 to honour Doug Earthy – a long-time member of the Kiwanis Club of North London. This award brings awareness of the important contribution of volunteers to the London community.
Matt has volunteered with our organization for 19.5 years! He started out as a Big Brother to his Little, Ryan, back in 2003. They were together for 8 years until Ryan graduated from the program at age 18. Matt and Ryan still keep in touch to this day.
After being a Big Brother, Matt became a board member. He served on several committees and was the board chair from 2020 to 2022. From family BBQ’s to match and fundraising events, Matt was always there to give us a helping hand. His involvement was felt by hundreds of people.
Matt was also on our Bowl for Kids’ Sake Committee for many years. He has also been the team captain of this event at his workplace (Canada Life) since 2015 where the team has collectively raised over $170,000.
When Matt retired from our board in September, he told us that his plan was to “pause” for a bit before making any new commitments. Yet within a few weeks, he’d applied to become a Big Brother again!
Thank you, Matt, for going above and beyond as a volunteer to our organization. Thank you to the Kiwanis Club for this valuable initiative on behalf of local community organizations!