U R IT Program Alumni

Young Leaders Program

The FunTeam U R IT program was developed in 2002 to give high school and junior high students a chance to work with students in elementary classrooms across the city of Edmonton and develop leadership skills. Students were deployed to schools to run an activity based program for students to be active, have fun, and work on physical literacy skills.

Sean Cheffins was one of those students almost 15 years ago and to this day he still cherishes the experience the FunTeam leadership program gave to him:

“As a leader you were the source of a result with a direct relation to fun. There was never pressure to make it competitive, but rather to teach and have the kids moving.”

During his time in school Sean had ideas of becoming a teacher. This came from his work experience at a sports goods store where he would regularly help young kids put on their first pair of skates. Though his initial goals of becoming a teacher didn’t come to life, he continued to provide that first-pair-of-skates experience and is now the Store Manager at ProSkate in Edmonton.

The U R IT Program (Ultimate Recreation and Sport Initiative) ran for 2 years reaching over 600 students and 15 schools with the goal of creating vibrant communities with contributing and stand up community members. We asked Sean what this program did for him and the students he worked with:

“FunTeam changes the definition of win with its programming. It’s not about the result being a score but what being a team is, how can someone improve, and what we are doing to make sure the kids are participating and being involved.”

The U R IT program has since evolved into the Young Leaders Program. The goal of empowering youth leadership in the community remains the same. And FunTeam Alberta has successfully grown the program each year working in and out of schools across the province. We are so thankful that we have been able to work with amazing leaders like Sean and for the impact that they had on students in their community.