by Barb Green
Jong Lee says he’s lucky, but a short conversation with the 83-year-old pickleball enthusiast reveals that his success in life has a lot more to do with hard work, staying active, and contributing to his community wherever he goes.
He started life and received his training as a chemical engineer in South Korea, emigrating to Canada as soon as he had raised enough money for the plane fare in 1967. It was a good time to put his skills to use in the country’s burgeoning resource sector after completing his graduate study degrees in Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering from the University of Alberta.
He worked for Petro-Canada for 30 years and retired in 2007. After a few years of consulting work, he gradually began taking on more volunteering at Confederation Park 55+ Senior Centre chorus, Calgary Food Bank, Kananaskis Trail maintenance, and many other volunteering and recreational activities. “I like keeping busy and connecting with all sorts of different places,” he says.
He started playing pickleball at HHBH about five or six years ago, has made some good friends there and recently got his wife involved too. He helps run a Confederation Park Senior Centre call centre for seniors who need help with their computers (even though he laughingly says he’s “in the same boat” himself these days) and adds his voice to two choruses (Harmony First and the Calgary Korean Canadian chorus).
A few years ago, he learned that his former employer, now Suncor, had added retirees in its program encouraging volunteerism. Through Benevity, the program allows retirees to record their volunteer hours and, when verified, receive $17/hour that they can then distribute to charities and non-profit groups of their choice.
Mr. Lee went to the trouble of having HHBH Community Association added to Suncor’s list of eligible non-profits to receive funding through this program, and says he’s been “lucky enough to do it two years so far,” even though he’s a Varsity resident.
It seems like we’re the lucky ones to have him on the pickleball court and in our community!
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