SASKATOON -- Joan Hansen was nominated as a CTV Hometown Hero because of all the work she does in her small town of Avonlea in south central Saskatchewan.
She gives her time to many in her community, including singing and playing the guitar for residents at the seniors home.
"Music speaks to everyone. I've had people who are nonverbal, but you'll see a foot tapping or a foot moving," Joan Hansen told CTV News.
She's been sharing her talents there for 15 years.
"I love them. I love being there with them."
She creates unique lyrics for residents, sometimes singing bedside for those who are immobile or dying. Families have asked her to sing at their funerals too.
She's helped start the town's first responder group and an Avonlea Facebook page where she posts photos of the town, birthday notices, events, celebrations and resident profiles.
She was also instrumental in helping the village gain the distinction of being "Riderville." She was even on the cover of the local newspaper for that honor, proudly wearing her green and white.
She gives credit to others in her town who volunteer like the younger group of women who banded together to get a gym created in the village.
“Our young people are very active. There are so many people in our community who deserve recognition like the ladies who started up a workout facility and that’s just one example.”
Hansen says she's had great mentors like one who volunteered into her 90s. Her mother lived until she was 100 - so she says she’ll volunteer as long as she can.
For now, she encourages others who might be thinking of volunteering to do so especially those in a small town like hers.
"If there's something in a small town you think should be done and isn't being done, you don't sit back and say, ‘I wish we had this or if only we had that.’ You have to do it."
