Emergency Services Leader, top honour
Fleetwood resident Chris Szostak, 56, always wanted to serve the public either as a police officer, firefighter or an ambulance attendant. He was hired on as a Surrey firefighter on Jan. 7, 2002, is now a captain working out of fire hall 10 in Newton and is this year's recipient of the Emergency Services Award.
"I really consider it a great honour," he said of the award. "I don't do it for the recognition, I do it just because I like to help people out. I've always been brought up that way and I've lived my life in that aspect. If I help other people out then I should hope and expect that people help me out in my times of need too."
About 10 years ago he joined the Surrey Fire Fighters Charitable Society's nutritional snack program for needy students, a program accessed by teachers in more than 130 schools. "I bring a lot of logistics kind-of background, computer support and stuff like that to help the program flourish and make it a lot easier in the streamline to get these snacks out to the kids."
At about that time, he also helped start up the SFFCS golf tournament to raise funds for worthy causes. "In that time span we generated probably close to $300,000," he said, before stepping down for personal health reasons. "Of course it's continued to grow leaps and bounds from executive that took it over and now we've raised over a million dollars through that golf tournament. But I was the founding executive that started that tournament. It was a great opportunity again to reach out and help kids in the city of Surrey through those endeavours."
Szostak also coordinated the Slamfest wrestling tournament, which resulted in five or six kids receiving scholarships every year.
"Being a past wrestler, growing up in the Guildford Park/North Surrey area I felt it prudent to kind-of give back to that community because I was given the opportunity at that time growing up so I thought I'd help out and join the wrestling team back at Guildford Park with a couple other firefighters. We re-formed the team, heavily involved in the coaching aspect of it."
According to his nominator, "Chris has consistently gone above and beyond the call of duty, unselfishly shouldering significant responsibilities while navigating the challenges and risks inherent to his role."
