Jacqueline Roy was so busy enthusing about her voluntary work at the Richmond Centre for Disability (RCD) that she almost failed to mention she was a multiple gold medal winner at a Canadian Paralympics.
Roy — who was rendered paraplegic after a rock climbing fall severed her spinal cord 39 years ago when she was 21 — has been volunteering most of her adult life, including the last 14 years at RCD on No. 3 Road.
“I always volunteered when my kids were at school, but at high school they stopped wanting me there!” said Roy, who also volunteered at her kids’ swim club back in their childhood days.
“For one year, I didn’t do anything. Then I bumped into the people at RCD and really liked them. Frances Clark told me at a city hall meeting that I should volunteer.”
Roy, who mainly helps RCD with office work, also curls in her spare time in the WCB curling league and loves going for a “wheel” around Richmond.
“I’ve clocked up 2,400 kilometres in that chair,” she said proudly.
Roy moved to Richmond from back East in 1984, through her husband’s work. But she had visited Richmond as early as 1979, to compete in the Canadian Paralympics, when she bagged several gold medals and was named the Best Athlete. She also competed for Canada in the Paralympics in Arnhem, Holland in 1980.
