CANADA
Lambton students honoured
Sasha Burden was working as a line cook at a Sarnia restaurant when she decided to enrol in Lambton College's child and youth worker program.
The decision paid off this week when the 25-year-old Inwood resident received both a Canadian Millennium National Excellence Award and the Norma and Edward Cox Award. "It's kind of difficult, being a mother of a three-year-old and being six months pregnant," she said. "Sometimes you don't get your homework done until really late at night when they actually go to sleep."
A total of 108 awards worth $76,000 were handed out at the college's academic award luncheon Tuesday. The financial support comes from industries, agencies and individuals interested in seeing students succeed.
Burden, an LCCVI graduate in her second year at Lambton, received the awards for a 3.8 grade point average and a written essay about her community involvement with a Big Brothers mentoring program. Each week she coaches a student at Hanna Memorial school.
A child and youth worker at school recommended Burden for the Cox Award, and a former employer recommended her for the millennium in-course award.
The $6,000 she received will help with schooling and credit card debt, said Burden, whose spouse is enrolled in the CPET (Chemical Production and Power Engineering Technology) program at Lambton.
Burden has already graduated from a chef program at Niagara College and a culinary management at Fanshawe College.
Her reasons for returning to school were primarily financial. She also felt it was time for a change, she said.
Tyler Kula
19 November 2009
