Rosemary and Gary Chambers have become the first couple to share a Pelham Citizen of the Year title.
The Fonthill and District Kinsmen Club announced the Fenwick couple as the 2014 Citizens of the Year last week. It’s the 17th annual award.
Publicity chair Kevin Twomey said the Chambers are excellent examples of the type of volunteers the Kinsmen want to promote through the award.
“They have a passion that goes above and beyond,” he said. “It comes from a real love for their community.”
At their Foss Street home, the phone rings with calls from friends working on various projects with the couple.
For Gary, the award comes as a humbling surprise.
“I feel guilty,” he said in an interview. “There are so many people out there who could be more deserving. It is something you accept on behalf of all those who work with you. You do it because you love the community”
Rosemary said volunteering is simply enjoyable.
“You meet so many great people. It gives you a sense of ownership in the town.”
For more than a decade, the Chambers are familiar faces at community events and involved in community issues.
They organized the 150th and 160th Fenwick anniversary celebrations. Money raised during the events and from brick sales will go to restore the Fenwick flagpole, now a designated heritage feature.
The Chambers have worked with the Friends of Maple Acre Library and on its campaign to retain the library branch.
They served on the downtown Fenwick beautification committee during the current reconstruction.
And as alumni they assisted with the Pelham High reunions. Last summer, they helped to launch the new Fenwick Farmers Market.
December saw Gary in a red suit during the annual Santa Claus parade. Earlier he wore a period costume during a Canada Day tea party.
He plans to do the same for Fonthill and Ridgeville cemetery tours this year that Rosemary as a member of the Pelham Historical Society has helped to script. People help at events because they are grateful to live in the community, Gary said. “It may sound hooky but it’s true.”
The couple has lived in Fenwick all their lives. Their family backgrounds reflect the recent history of the village.
Gary can go back through three families of Loyalists to Butler’s Rangers in the American Revolution.
Rosemary’s parents came to Fenwick from Holland in 1949, as part of an immigration wave into Niagara after the Second World War.
“I grew up on the farm across the street,” said Gary in their Foss Road home.
“I lived around the corner on Church Street,” said Rosemary. “You can see the house through the trees.”
Gary, 68, and Rosemary, 57, knew each other when they were young. When she was six, she visited his grandparents, who lived beside her parents.
“I was afraid of him,” she said of the teenage Gary.
They went their separate ways. They then met again 25 years ago at the Green Lantern and 20 years ago married.
“We have lot of common interests except the car culture,” chuckles Gary referring to his love of classic cars including his 1953 Monarch.
Those common interests swept them into volunteering after they retired. He worked as a tradesman at General Motors for 36 years while she was in health services at Niagara College.
While they grew up in the town, they said volunteering to on local projects is not just for long-time residents.
“It is a way to meet people and become part of the community,” said Rosemary.
Gary said everyone was a newcomer at sometime and encourages those moving into Pelham to join in.
Twomey said the Kinsmen felt moved as they read the nomination letters supporting the Chambers for citizens of the year.
“They inspire others to act.”
The club was pleased with an increased number of nominations it received this year.
The award will be presented at a dinner ceremony in the Old Pelham Town Hall on Tuesday, March 3. Tickets are available at the Royal Bank in Fenwick.
