Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

INUVIK
Inuvik's Delta Girls has a new leader in Wanda McDonald.

Alexa Kuptana, left, Julienne Chipesia and Wanda McDonald take a break from serving snacks at the community hall in the Midnight Sun Complex on Nov. 24. - Danielle Sachs/NNSL photo

On Nov. 24, McDonald and a group of girls helped raise money for the Inuvik Youth Centre through sales at the Great Northern Arts Festival Christmas Craft and Gift sale.

Selling chili, reindeer soup, fresh doughnuts and cookies, which the girls also helped make, McDonald was hoping it would encourage people to come out and find out more about the program.

"Want I want to do is have the girls tell us what they want to be doing," she said. "The programming is led by the girls involved and ideally we'll run from November to June. Whichever they decide they want to be doing we'll match it to the month."

So far, some of the girls have asked for sewing and beading classes. Others have asked for baking, like Julienne Chipesia.

"It's been a lot of fun," she said, in between taking money from customers for some of the cookies and muffins on sale. "I like the baking and volunteering at the craft fair."

Alexa Kuptana was also helping out at the craft fair on Nov. 24, and she said so far, baking has been a lot of fun but she also wants more people to start showing up. Usually there are five girls in attendance.

"More people would make it a lot more fun," she said.

Volunteering is one of the activities that McDonald is encouraging.

"They could volunteer at the food bank or again at something like this, really, anything they want to do we'll try and make it happen," she said.

Delta Girls is restricted to girls between the ages of nine and 12.

"For that age group, you're at a really in-between stage," said McDonald. "You're not a kid but not an adult and it can be a challenge to find something to do."

The group meets twice a week, Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. The programming isn't meant to compete with other activities happening at the same time, but there are overlaps.

"There might be other things like sports or Girl Guides happening at the same time. We're still new so we're just trying to get the word out there and build up our attendance a little bit," said McDonald.

One of the challenges in offering activities is keeping the participants focused, she added.

"It can be a challenge, but if they're choosing the activities and through that learning about different topics, it can work," she said.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.