My name is Carter Metcalf, I am 18 years old. My parents, Nancy and Chad Metcalf are clients of Gary Elder. In August I will be attending the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, for Mechatronic Engineering. I am starting one week early, as I have volunteered to be part of the University’s welcoming committee and move-in crew. I thought this was an excellent way to meet new people and start giving back to the university.
I love that I grew up in Ontario, a province that has four seasons, amazing opportunities to explore, learn about nature and meet new people. I have dedicated as much time as possible to make it an even greater place to live. I accumulated 895 volunteer hours during my high school career, and I hope that I am setting a good example for my peers and particularly boys my age. I feel like young men get a bad rap, are overlooked or even undervalued and sometimes I think they struggle to see ways they can contribute. I am not sure if society better recognizes this potential in girls, but I have worked very hard to dispel the stereotype that high school boys aren’t involved or interested in being involved. I have always wanted to please people and maybe more importantly I have wanted to feel good about the decisions I make. I believe that hard work, helping others and contributing to society through solving problems, is important.
I work hard at school and have always achieved Honour Roll Status. In grade 8 I was voted valedictorian, both by my classmates and the school staff. In high school I continued to demonstrate active leadership and have been involved in many activities including being a grade 9 mentor, grade rep, member of band council and a member of the Relay for Life Committee. I played in three school bands and I was sectional leader. This was a huge time commitment, having a minimum of three practices a week with additional sectional practices over lunch. Outside of my nearly 900 volunteer hours, I coordinated two large band fundraisers that helped offset our costs to travel to New York and play at Carnegie Hall. I competed with the high school badminton team and play in the city league. I graduated with 5 extra high school credits (in my four years of high school) as I elected to take on-line courses and summer courses to allow time in my schedule to participate in music, technology courses, co-op and a year-long missions leadership program. I have two part time jobs during the school year. I taught Mytes skating twice a week and I am a swim teacher on the weekends and pick up shifts during the week when I am needed. I really enjoy working with the young kids in our community and helping them feel excited and proud of their accomplishments. I participated in Single A hockey but found that the coaching staff was often verbally degrading and demoralizing. In my final year of competitive hockey, the coach was demeaning to a few players and two of those players quit the sport altogether. I still loved the game of hockey and I wanted to play, so I continued with house league and I vowed I never wanted anyone person or child to feel that way, so I made sure I was the best Mytes skating coach I could be. I worked for seven years with the city’s Mytes skating program and I often coached the most shy and fragile players, helping them to feel confident and proud of their accomplishments. In the summer I run a swim program and last year we had a record number of registrations. This is a program that offers free swimming lessons to any child that registers, with the hope of preventing any drownings in the region. I was responsible for teaching, organizing, assessing and communicating with over 130 children and their families. It was an incredible amount of work and responsibility, but I really learned a lot and all the kids had a fabulous time. I have been rehired to run the program this summer and because of the program success, I was asked to run a similar program in another northern community.
In grade 11, I participated in a year-long Missions Leadership Program, with focus on local, national and international missions’ activities. We travelled to Ecuador and helped build a school. It was an incredible experience that involved hours of work outside of the normal school day. I collected nine packed suitcases of new clothing, sundresses, baby layette sets and book bags. It was an amazing feeling being able to provide our mission group with these items and donate them on our trip. Recently, because of my school involvement, I was one of five students awarded a School Letter, which is awarded to students who have accumulated a minimum of 800 points. The points are awarded in categories and are weighted, based on grade averages, involvement in music, sports, clubs, mission work, councils and school events. I was the only male student to receive this honour and I hope that I will inspire other male students to get involved.
Along with being busy with school, music, work and sports, I try and volunteer as much as possible. I have accumulated 895 volunteer hours during my time at high school. I have participated in parades, Rogers Home Town Hockey, Ontario Winter Games, Fundraisers for animal shelters, helping seniors, neighbourhood clean-ups and what I am most proud of, is that I established a network to divert useable goods from a casino warehouse to charities instead of going to the landfill. In April the casino and local newspaper highlighted this work. In the past two years I have helped divert over 100,000 items from landfill. These items, deemed as scrap by the casino, are all reusable and often new. I pick up any items that can be directly used by a local charity and deliver them. This winter I delivered cases of surplus hot chocolate mix to the men’s shelter and Legion. I have set up a new dining hall in the men’s shelter with tables, giving them additional seating to service more clients. I take linens weekly to local animal shelters. This diversion program has even helped create a re-sale program that creates a revenue stream for a private no-kill cat shelter in our city. When unique items come available, I find creative ways to rehome or repurpose the item, while still helping charities. I am very proud of how many items have been kept out of our landfill and how many charities have been helped. One of the reasons I chose to attend the University I did, was so that I could come home more frequently and continue to support this program. Another significant volunteer position I have is as the trail steward for a large provincially advertised walking trail and nature area. After I had volunteered for years helping with trail maintenance, I was asked by the board to take on this official role, which makes me accountable to the board for trail maintenance, trail promotion and fundraising.
From a very early age I told my teachers that I wanted to be an inventor when I grew up. I liked the idea of creating something new and something useful. As I grew older and realized there wasn’t a university course for future inventors, I thought that engineers were inventors, and they did have a program for that. I have never strayed from that vision. I like the idea of being creative, solving problems and improving lives and the environment, with principles regulated by the rules and order of science. When I learned of the multidisciplinary degree that Mechatronic Engineering offered, I knew I had found my future program. I was excited and proud to be accepted to several university engineering programs, but I chose to accept my offer at the University of Ontario IT, recently rebranded as Ontario Tech U. For many reasons this feels like a perfect school for me including the fact that I could still come home to help with my waste diversion program, contribute and participate in community wide events throughout the year and stay connected with my family and friends. Ontario Tech U is one of only a few universities that offers Mechatronic Engineering, so I was excited to be able to take my program of choice at my university of choice.
Throughout my schooling, I hope to secure several co-op placements, that will give me exposure to new fields and hopefully direct me to a final career destination. I spent a day in the SNOlab in Sudbury and I would love to spend more time in mines and explore that possibility as a full-time career. Either in my career or in a volunteer capacity, I want to be able to develop robotic type systems that can help save our planet. We need to get the plastic out of the lakes and oceans, out of landfill and out of consumer products. With my family’s involvement with the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, several animal rescues and wildlife rehabilitation centres, I have developed a passion for giving back. In my career or continuing my volunteer work, I would like to be able to build affordable aids to assist disabled people, disabled pets and injured wildlife; contributing to their quality of life. I would love to design and build these affordable aids and donate them to people and rescues in need. I want to make a difference and I want to help the planet before it is too late. I have grown up in a family that has instilled the principle of giving back more than you take, to being kind to others and to protect animals and the environment. Our planet is on the verge of irreversible damage and while I do everything I can to minimize my footprint, I want to do more to help reverse the damage done and protect our future. I’d like to be able to raise a guide dog in my upper years of university, as the guiding association is always in need of students for this role. On a personal level, I would like to increase funding opportunities to students to help them with the costs associated with their schooling. I’d like to help Ontario Tech University become aligned with the Loran Scholar Foundation. I was selected as a semi-finalist for this prestigious award and spent a day in Toronto being interviewed multiple times by committee members. Unfortunately, my University of choice, was not affiliated with this incredible program and I was not selected as a finalist. I would love a future UOIT student to have this opportunity and have the support of the Loran Scholar community. I have been nominated for an Order of Orillia award, and am a finalist. This is a nonmonetary award, but highlights community members that have given back to their community. It is an honour to be nominated and considered for this award. If I am selected as a finalist, I hope that it inspires other teenagers to be involved in their community and to find ways to give back.
While some of my life goals feel well defined, I think others will come into focus as I further my education. I do know that I will continue to support and grow my charity work and hopefully I will inspire the next generation to get involved.
Carter Metcalf
