{"id":36422,"date":"2025-06-12T15:23:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36422"},"modified":"2025-06-12T15:23:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:23:22","slug":"citizen-of-the-years-passion-for-giving-back-was-instilled-at-young-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/citizen-of-the-years-passion-for-giving-back-was-instilled-at-young-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizen of the Year\u2019s passion for giving back was instilled at young age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Giving back is not something new for Sandy Bundy; in fact, it\u2019s always been a way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-time community volunteer, whose work ranges from the Optimist Club of Aurora, to Hillary House National Historic Site, to Big Brothers Big Sisters of York and the Royal Canadian Legion, was named Aurora\u2019s 2025 Citizen of the Year at the Town of Aurora\u2019s annual Community Recognition Awards on May 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to The Auroran after she had a week to try her new title on for size, she said she was thoroughly surprised to receive the honour as she thought she was just at the ceremony to celebrate her fellow volunteers, including a number of Optimists who were being honoured for decades of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just really enjoyed being there, seeing that, and the other awards, and I was just so happy they got acknowledged because it just makes you aware of what\u2019s going on in the Town and the people who are doing their best to bring the best,\u201d says Bundy. \u201cI was not expecting the award at all, but once the Mayor started reading [the citation] I started to think it sounded a little familiar. I don\u2019t know what I was thinking at the time, but it was definitely a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bundy says she grew up in a family where volunteering was a part of everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her parents were ardent volunteers, with her mother serving as the president of the volunteer organization that served the Children\u2019s Psychiatric Research Institute in London, ON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen she needed help with things, we would come out and help,\u201d she says of her family. \u201cRight away I was able to see people who weren\u2019t as fortunate as myself, who had mental and physical disabilities, or had come from terrible homes, and I think that\u2019s where helping those that need help, that don\u2019t have everything that I\u2019ve been fortunate to have, [came from] and realizing there\u2019s so many people out there that need us to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These early experiences gave her a working knowledge of real-world struggles and the ways, large and small, the average person can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy heart as a volunteer is for helping those who are less fortunate,\u201d she says, \u201cbut there are also other areas I am interested in. When I work at the Legion and Hillary House, those aren\u2019t people in need, but it is very different. My heart is in the programs that I run through the Optimist Club \u2013 the KIND (Kids in Need Delivered) program, which is helping youth in our area. I really like to grow the programs I am running now through the Optimist Club because they are helping kids in need [and] we\u2019re now just realizing the need at high schools and are creating a program there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she considers the impact of the Citizen of the Year Award, Bundy says it\u2019s an honour to have the opportunity of representing Aurora\u2019s volunteers in the community over the next 12 months and highlighting the benefits of giving back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to get involved in so many different things,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much out there, but I didn\u2019t really realize that people kind of just don\u2019t know where to start. Everybody has something to offer, whether you\u2019re a leader, a follower, a worker bee, you can take part in whatever you feel most comfortable. Maybe someone likes working with animals, so they can volunteer with animals. Maybe for some people, working with animals is their job, so they\u2019re looking for something totally different. There\u2019s really something for everybody and there\u2019s no job that is too small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople can get involved at any sort of level and work, do as much as they want, and for some organizations, there\u2019s not a big need for what they do, but it\u2019s such a wonderful way to meet people, to find out about maybe an area that you don\u2019t know about, or to share your expertise in an area. There really, truly is something for everybody out there. Don\u2019t worry, just jump in, find out more about it, and go from there. It\u2019s great developing friendships. For people still in the job market, it\u2019s great for your resume; for the younger kids getting community hours as well, there are so many opportunities out there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giving back is not something new for Sandy Bundy; in fact, it\u2019s always been a way of life. The long-time community volunteer, whose work ranges from the Optimist Club of Aurora, to Hillary House National Historic Site, to Big Brothers Big Sisters of York and the Royal Canadian Legion, was named Aurora\u2019s 2025 Citizen of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2025-05-29-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9ts","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:29:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36423,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36422\/revisions\/36423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}