When Carrie Plaskett moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake with her husband Jay Buffington and their twin boys Henry and Malcolm, she knew she wanted to get involved in her new community.
Did she ever!
It started with an inquiry into how she could assist with the NOTL Soccer Club once her boys, then eight years old, were registered to play. She joined the soccer board and took on the role of registrar.
Then, with her twins enroled at Crossroads Public School, she decided to join the school’s parent council. And once Henry and Malcolm, who had never really skated before the move to NOTL from San Francisco, California, started playing minor hockey, she volunteered as their team’s trainer.
Today, Plaskett is president of the soccer club, the volunteer coordinator for the NOTL Wolves Minor Hockey Association and chair of the Crossroads Public School parent council.
Years ago, armed with a BA in kinesiology and physical education from Wilfrid Laurier University, an MSc in Health Sciences from York University, and a BSc in nursing from the University of Toronto, the Thornhill, Ontario native moved to San Francisco for a nursing job.
While working there she met Buffington, a software developer. They got married and started their family, eventually moving to a home in the Laurel Heights area.
Following her mother’s example, Plaskett began her volunteerism on the parent council at the boys’ small private school and also helped coach their baseball team.
Meanwhile, Plaskett’s parents Diane and Bill, had moved to NOTL. She had always wanted to move back to Canada to be closer to them. In 2019 Carrie and Jay decided that the time had come to make that dream a reality. Bill passed away shortly after the family’s move from California.
“I put my boys into soccer that summer,” says Plaskett, who wasn’t working at the time, “and that was a great way for them to meet some friends who would be going to Crossroads with them that September. That was how I began to find people with the same interests and drive. I have always felt it was important to contribute to your community, too.”
With her background in sports and physical education, and her love of long-distance running and playing volleyball and field hockey, getting involved in their twins’ athletic activities was natural for Plaskett. It was also a way for her to show the boys that women can take on leadership roles in sports organizations.
It’s not lost on Plaskett that volunteering allows her to be a big part of Henry and Malcolm’s lives.
“I feel so fortunate that I can bring them to the arena, I’m at the soccer field, I’m in their school,” she says. “I know what’s happening in their lives. I know their friends and teammates. And it’s important to me that they play in their local sports organizations, to keep our kids here.”
Plaskett spent the first weekend of March Break practically living at the two arenas in Virgil. She coordinated the phalanx of volunteers helping staff the barbecue, run the time box and check in the teams for the Wolves’ annual March Break Local League tournament.
While Henry was playing in the tournament with his U13 team, Malcolm was one of those volunteers, as was Jay, who could be seen sitting in the time box with Carrie during a couple of the games.
That was just a week after taking on a similar role for another successful Crossroads Home Show, the parent council’s biggest annual fundraiser. She spent most of her time during that day helping with the barbecue.
As the soccer club’s president, Plaskett is gearing up for the opening festival for the 2024 season at Virgil sports park on Saturday, May 25. Typically, between 350 and 425 kids aged four to 17 play soccer in NOTL each summer.
Plaskett says there are different dynamics with each of the organizations she is a part of.
“The school council has a great group of parents who work very well together,” she explains. “I have to give credit to Ashley Dickson, as well as Emily and Ashley Thwaites, for all their work on the home show. They are so organized. And (principal) Kate Fish makes it so easy.”
She says her first summer on the soccer board was a great way to dip her toes into volunteering in her new home.
“Year after year I have learned so much,” Plaskett states. “That was the first board of directors that I joined. Ted (Vanderkaay, former president) was such a mentor to me. Our current board has a common vision of building soccer in our community. And we have some new faces on the board this year, which is great.”
And she’s always impressed with the passion her colleagues in the Wolves organization bring to the sport of hockey, especially president Peter Flynn, public relations director Tania Fera-Vangent and tournament convenor James Cadeau, with whom she worked closely that March Break weekend.
“There is a good sense of our vision, and the board has worked hard to implement new policies and procedures,” she explains. “We’re working well together.”
Currently, Plaskett is balancing her busy volunteer life with her job as a facilitator for an online nursing course at Niagara College.
“It keeps me in the nursing world,” she says, “and I’ve always loved teaching. When I was nursing in San Franciso I was responsible for training new nurses. That was a role I liked, it’s so important to get newcomers confident and on board.”
Believe it or not, with all of her responsibilities she still finds time to pack up the family’s camper van for periodic trips to Missouri to visit Jay’s family.
And she’s happy that all she does for the community seems to be rubbing off on the twins.
Malcolm volunteered at the local league tournament while Henry was playing, and Henry volunteered back in November while Malcolm was playing in the Wolves’ Harvest Classic Tournament. And they are always there on the sidelines assisting when they can at the annual end-of-summer soccer festival.
“They see me having fun doing it, they see me connecting with the other board members,” says Plaskett. “And they seem to have a lot of fun volunteering as well.”
