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Walking her talk — Sara Jennings takes the path less travelled

"It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
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"It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true."

- American philosopher William James

You've probably seen her a bunch of times. She's the one pedalling furiously along the road, dragging a six-foot long trailer behind her electric-assisted bike filled with (literally) hundreds of pounds of groceries destined for Whistler's needier citizens. There's even a little sign on the trailer informing the curious that donations are welcome.

Yep. You got it. There goes Sara Jennings doing her usual community thing in her usual minimalist way.

"How to transport the food — that was the only challenge in my taking this job," says the WCSS Food Bank's indomitable coordinator. "I didn't own a car and I wasn't planning on owning a car. So how could I make this work?" She punctuates her remark with her distinctive high-energy laugh: "Heh. Heh. Heh." Then she continues. "Everything else was so perfect: the job was aligned with my principles, it wasn't full-time and the hours were flexible." She pauses. Takes a quick breath. "So I decided to buy a big cargo trailer... I always wanted one anyway."

And it's worked. Sort of. "I've been at the Food Bank for four years now," says Sara. And sighs. "The cycling thing was definitely do-able at first. But it's a lot harder now that we've moved." Indeed — the Food Bank's recent shift in locale from the bottom of Lorimer Road to Spring Creek has injected a bit of a stick into her cycling spokes. "We get most of our donations from Nesters and the IGA," she explains, "so it's a tough haul to drag all that weight across the town and up the hills to our new place."

Tough? Think Herculean labour. "It's not like people don't want to help," she's quick to add about her twice-a-week pickup. "There's always someone offering me a car to use." Another long sigh. "But I don't want to drive a car." And then she laughs. "Still, it is an issue. Just this morning my dad took a load for me." Pause. "There was so much weight in the trunk that the back of his car was sagging."

Sara Jennings is on a mission. Has been for some years now. Already boasting an impressive CV of global activism — from organizing post-Sept. 11 peace rallies in Southeast Asia to performing guerrilla theatre at anti-war demonstrations in Washington, DC; from cycling across Canada with a youth-group promoting social change to putting on giant-puppet shows in Israel and Palestine — the 36-year old has fashioned the kind of selfless journey of discovery that few of us are ever brave enough to undertake.

And for Sara it's come down to a very simple proposition: "I want to treat others (people, animals, plants — everything!) the way I would want to be treated myself," she says. And she means every word of it. "To get there though, I've had to make profound changes in my own life. I really had to ask myself some serious questions about the way I viewed my place on this planet."

Seems like she's answered them all in the positive. She's become a vegetarian. And she's entirely happy living in a tiny, 160 square-foot, in-fill apartment in Creekside. As for her usual means of transportation, well, we already know that she mostly rides a bike. And shopping? "I've been able to curb most of my consumer needs," she answers. And laughs some more. "After all, it's hard to consume a lot when you live in 160 square feet and you ride a bike to work..."

And because her needs are so basic, Sara finds she doesn't have to devote so much of her time to the soul-crushing task of making money. "I don't have a big urge for dollars," she says. "Which allows me to focus on my passion for environmental and social issues more. So you see, it all works out somehow." Yes it does — particularly for the many local organizations that benefit directly from Sara's volunteer hours — like AWARE and AWARE Kid's Nature Club and Whistler Watch and WCSS and Whistler Naturalists and...

A Whistlerite, you say? Born and raised in the very heart of hedonism and high jinx? How could this happen? How could a local Whistler kid — the town's official firstborn in fact — turn out to be such a socially-conscious, counter-consumerist?

Let's reel back the story for a moment. As we found out last week, Sara was born back in 1975 — at a time (she likes to remind people) when the counterculture ethos still held sway with Whistler's young residents.

"Growing up in this community was an amazing experience," she says. "When I was little, Whistler had much stronger hippy roots. It was a small town, sure, but people here thought way more globally than just locally. As for my parents — though they far from 'hippies' by Whistler standards — they were very sensitive to environmental issues." And then she cites an example. Re-cycling, she tells me, was a part of her life lo-o-o-n-g before it became a mainstream concern. "Remember Whistler's annual Rummage Sale? My mom ran that. We grew up surrounded by boxes of second-hand stuff." Dad, meanwhile, was one of AWARE's first directors...

As for her friends and classmates during those years, she has nothing but positive memories. "The kids I grew up with at Whistler," she says, "are incredibly kind and generous people who are all environmentally aware and active. There's a sense of spirit — of community — about them that I really appreciate. And of course we all share similar memories of 'early' Whistler."

She laughs. "For me, it's simple. Growing up at Whistler was all about freedom. Free to go out and explore, adventure, have fun, whatever. We were told to go outside and play. So that's what we did. The riverbank, the train tracks, the marshlands — that was our playground. There was just so much room then. Like I said — it was all about freedom."

It could be argued that Sara and her contemporaries lived through the most tumultuous years in Whistler's developmental history. Barely considered a community when they were born — without a grocery store, gas station, laundromat or bank to call its own — Whistler would undergo such an urban transformation in the intervening two decades as to be nearly unrecognizable by the time they finished high school. "You could feel the change happening," says Sara. "You could feel the hippy ethos slowly ebbing away..."

For the young activist-to-be, the first "crisis" came early. "I was 12," she remembers. "And I heard about this public hearing being held over what the Nicklaus North golf course people proposed to do to 'our' marshlands." A long pause. "I was extremely shy in those days, but I decided we absolutely had to say something at that meeting. So I wrote the words out on a piece of paper and my friend Karen Kogler (she was way braver than me) delivered the speech."

She sighs. Shrugs. "We lost that one," she says. And then: "I've always wondered if I might have become active sooner had we won that case instead..."

But there were other big events on the horizon. And her futile fight for her beloved marshlands faded into the background. "Going to high school in Pemberton had a big influence on my life," says Sara. "Not scholastically so much, but socially. There was so much diversity there. Ski bums' kids and loggers' kids and farmers' kids and First Nations kids — they were all part of the mix. And that diversity was so important for us. So valuable. I think most of my fellow students would agree."

Still, by the time Sara's graduation came in 1994, she was ready to leave Whistler. "I couldn't wait to get out," she admits. "The commercialisation, the image thing — 'Disney comes to Whistler' — it was just too superficial for me. This wasn't where I wanted to be... at least not at that point in my life."

She left for university... and set her sights on becoming a sports doctor. "I was doing what I thought society expected of me," she says. "Besides, I was a good athlete. And totally passionate about sports. I figured I could make a career out of a 'credible' profession."

But it wasn't to be. After a year of college misery, she eventually realized that sports medicine wasn't for her. "I was struggling between doing what I was supposed to do and doing what I wanted to do." It took a while for Sara to figure it out. Then it hit her: "Early childhood education," she says. "That was it! I decided I would focus on working with kids." She smiles. "It just felt right for me..."

Next Week: Sara becomes radicalized while travelling, gets involved in organizing peace marches in Asia and joins an international troupe of political puppet-makers.