Becky & Clay Fadden

Originally from Kamloops, British Columbia, this Power Duo has a common goal: to enhance and enrich the community by enabling those around them to excel at creating and/or performing their art or their sport, all without taking the limelight away from those creators and performers. YMM: What do you consider the best things about our community? CF: We came here for work and it certainly kept us here, but we also found that Fort McMurray is the perfect size for getting involved with groups and activities that interest us.  Early in our time here we were part of the Running Club and the Triathlon Club, got to know most of the runners and triathletes in town and then helped organize multiple marathon and triathlon events.  Later we became involved in filmmaking and theatre and again met great groups of people all focused on shared creative activities.  In this city, people with common interests band together to make things happen, and we’ve seen this strength resonate over and over again during our years here. YMM: Tell us about your volunteer experience in the community. BF: In our 25 years in Fort McMurray, we’ve volunteered for a broad mix of sport and arts-related organizations.  The running and triathlon clubs were early in our community involvement and led to our being honoured—as a family—with the 2007 Municipality of Wood Buffalo Volunteer Achievement Award.  As our sons’ activities moved into curling and theatre during high school, we followed them and have been helping to put in the curling ice surface, coach junior curlers, and assist with a great variety of the behind-the-scenes aspects of our local theatre productions.  In all of our volunteer efforts, we like to be the shadow in the background that helps get everything in place for others to shine, either at their sport, on their stage, or in their overall life. YMM: What accomplishment are you most proud of? CF: I’m proud that it was often our entire family engaged in the activities that we became involved in over the years.  From the time they could walk, our boys helped out at races we organized by handing out refreshments to runners at water stations.  After returning from the 2016 Wildfire evacuation we worked as an entire family over one weekend to create a Lego animated film called “Rebuilding – A Blockumentary” for the Fort McMurray International Film Festival’s 48-Hour Film Challenge.  Together, we won “Best 48 Hour Film”, and this led to our entire family’s involvement with another local group of filmmakers, M’Guphynn Media, as they created their 10-part web series “Nerdvana: The Web Series”.  One final example, the Fadden boys were 3/4ths of their high school curling team that won the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association’s 2019 Provincial Curling Championships, complete with the event’s Sportsmanship Banner.  We’ve always worked together, and we are very proud of the entire family’s accomplishments. YMM: How have your priorities changed in the last 10 years? BF : As our sons moved through high school and then on to work and post-secondary education—each year more and more independently—we started finding ourselves with more and more time to do our own activities again.  This led to helping in the theatre and arts communities, taking dance classes and guitar lessons for personal development, and giving back at the curling club that our boys spent so much time in during their formative years.  So, ultimately, as our children grew into themselves, we returned to the community.