Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Sep 28/01) - The Girl Guides and Pathfinders here are helping to raise money for relief efforts in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Amanda Park holds up two of the donations boxes put up in several locations in Inuvik by the girl guides and pathfinders to raise funds for the Canadian Red Cross. - Malcolm Gorrill/NNSL photo

Donation boxes have been set up at the Cafe Gallery, Rexall Drugs, and within the IDC Building. The boxes are being collected this week. The proceeds are to go to the Canadian Red Cross.

Among those taking part in these efforts is Girl Guide Amanda Park, who said she wanted to help the people who got hurt and those who lost family members.

"It made me feel very, very sad, because I have a couple of relatives that live around New York," said Park, who also has a cousin who works as a flight attendant for American Airlines.

A new year is about to kick off for the girl guides, ages nine to 12, as well as for the sparks, five and six, brownies, seven and eight, and pathfinders, 12 to 15. They had a booth at last week's community registration night at the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex.

Patricia Davison, district commissioner for Inuvik Girl Guides, said that as of last Friday there were 13 signed up for sparks, 13 for brownies, and 15 for guides.

"For the first night of registration, that's pretty good," Davison said.

"These numbers are fairly similar to what we had last year."

She explained that all the groups usually pick up more members once they get going for the year.

"Right now we're just trying to make sure we have a good number of leaders in place for each of the groups, so there can be some really exciting and safe programming done for them."

Davison explained there is a core group of leaders, but that they're always looking for more help, especially if some leaders need to be out of town for a while.