I am Nicholas Swank, the son of Nadine Terziani and Bradley Swank. I was born in Northern British Columbia but moved to Kamloops before I began Kindergarten. I have lived here my entire life besides a year in University where I studied abroad in Angers, France. I am very grateful for the life that my parents, friends and community have supported me to create. During my school age years I was very team sport oriented and experienced a typical but positive schooling experience. As I grew into early adulthood I became interested in several different facets of community life. Firstly, I am fortunate enough to have a space where I can garden, learning to grow flowers and produce for my own enjoyment aesthetically and as food. Every season, I alter my methods from the year before according to the discoveries I stumbled upon. It is a fantastic hobby to discover a sense of lifelong learning that occurs daily as the seasons shift and fluctuate naturally. This interest in gardening alongside a passion for food sovereignty led me towards the Butler Urban Farm; a decommodified food garden that is mostly volunteer run. It provides food for the folks who help out there, neighbors, and various organizations who serve the community. Volunteering in this space has illustrated the power of collective action that can affect real local change in a way that is sustainable, enjoyable, and just. The Butler Urban Farm also created networks of organizations that I was able to support with my time and effort such as “The Loop.” The Loop is a community resource centre for folks to enjoy a warm meal, socialize, and access various services. Here, they use food produced at the Butler Urban Farm, feed the community, and save the compost to be returned to the farm for reuse. These two organizations demonstrate the connections of community organizations and how important they are to serve our friends, neighbors and strangers alike. These two spaces are largely volunteer run and created for me a positive feeling of connection and purpose in a difficult time during the peak of the pandemic. In the past several years I have also become curious and passionate about the arts. I feel this way on a daily level by trying to notice beauty in everyday things, like a particularly abrupt intersection of lines on a building or a pretty weed growing between a crack. More concretely though I have been developing my love for the arts by learning to play bass guitar. I have always loved music and the effect of collective effervescence of live performance. Thus, I wanted to learn for myself and have been gradually learning with friends in spare rooms and open mics around the city. Learning an instrument from nothing has given me the appreciation for learning the fundamentals of any given thing and using them to further propel your ability and knowledge. Altogether, these interests instill me with a real love for life and community that I hope is perceived by those who I interact with in whichever space I am engaged within.