As selection day in September draws closer, the Wellesley Fair board has named the two nominees for the ambassador position.
Alexis Boyd Koudys, an 18-year-old recent graduate of Elmira District Secondary School, is joined by Ali Khan, a 17-year-old who will be entering Grade 12 at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School. Khan is just the fifth male nominee in the fair history.
For Boyd Koudys it was a bit of a surprise to be nominated.
“I hadn’t heard much about the program. I probably heard it occasionally very briefly, but I never really looked into it, then someone nominated me. When I looked into it, I thought it would be a great learning opportunity for leadership and public speaking and kind of learning about how to be more involved in the community. So I’m pretty excited,” she said at a launch event Tuesday night in St. Agatha.
Boyd Koudys earned her Specialist high skill major in health and wellness and will be studying kinesiology at university in September, something that combines two of her interests: science and people.
“I like learning about people, and kinesiology is like a combination of science and people. I like spending time with people,” she said.
Boyd Koudys is looking forward to meeting new people in the fair program.
“I personally really enjoy networking not just because you can in the future have those connections, but also because you get to know people kind of on a personal level. So I’m excited to be able to do that throughout this whole program,” she added.
Whether or not she is chosen as ambassador, Boyd Koudys, is hoping to gain new skills from the program.
“I just want to give it my best and see what kind of things I can accomplish.”
As he has been volunteering for the Wellesley Youth Advisory Committee (WYAC) since Grade 6, Khan said he was drawn to the opportunity to take on a bigger role in the community via the ambassador program.
“[WYAC] hosts numerous events throughout the year where we have family movie nights, we have seniors’ lunches, firefighters’ breakfasts where we help out. The seniors’ lunches, we help serve food to the seniors in the community. We have family events throughout the year,” he explained.
His time in WYAC taught him how to communicate with people, said Khan.
“Volunteering you have to communicate with people older than you and younger than you, you get to learn how to talk to people,” he said.
The skills he has gained outside of school will be useful as ambassador, he added.
“Because of my leadership skills that I’ve been volunteering and working outside of school, I think I’d be able to help out in leadership activities.”
After high school Khan plans on studying business and/or marketing at either the University of Waterloo or Wilfrid Laurier University.
An ambassador will be selected at the fair, which returns as an in-person event on September 13.
