A long-time supporter of the arts in Strathmore has been recognized for her efforts by the province of Alberta.

The Alberta Northern Lights Volunteer Recognition Program highlights the achievements of everyday heroes who try to better communities in the province. In her role as a music and piano teacher and being one of the founders of the Strathmore Performing Arts Festival and the Vault Cultural Collective, Carolyn Steeves has been able to share her passion for the arts with an entire community.

Steeves has also helped establish Arts on 817, the concert-based series held at the Strathmore United Church, and has enabled many children in the community to have access to arts programming through her teaching career at École Brentwood Elementary School.

She explained that she found out she had been nominated by a former Brentwood School and piano student and former board member of the Strathmore Performing Arts Festival, Greg John. Then, out of the blue recently she was contacted by the province to provide more information. It wasn't long after that she was told she won the award on July 21.

“I'm just passionate about the arts. Some people might say I'm obsessed with it. As a small child, I took piano lessons. I was involved in school choirs and school bands and those kinds of things decided I wanted to do a music degree," she said.

“I had a 41-year teaching career, raised children that were all involved in arts and two of them now professionally and one of my other children is a music teacher in Calgary,” she explained.

Music and the arts is something that she loves and wants to be involved with.

“It’s just something that drives my spirit. I'm passionate about it. I think it's vitally important to our world today. I just want to make sure, I guess in my inner being, that there’s arts for the whole community, young, older, whatever it is that floats your boat.”

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