A few years ago, Cst. Troy Derrick, the First Nations policing officer for the Semiahmoo First Nation in Surrey, B.C., wanted to do something to get kids in the community active.
He started informally working out with a few kids from Semiahmoo in the mornings before school, eventually expanding to include other First Nations students at the school gym. And when other students then spotted them there, they asked to join too.
So Derrick decided to open it up to all students and came up with a formal structure to the program, along with a formal name — Code Blue.
Derrick, with the help of the Surrey RCMP Youth Section and several fellow members, special constables and auxiliary constables, holds weekly sessions for high school students in the area. Each week, participants undertake fitness challenges, similar to what cadets go through at the RCMP training facility, that push their limits and foster team-building. Derrick says while everyone joins for different reasons, the benefits are universal.
"Some of them want to be police officers, some want to make friends, some just want to get fit," says Derrick. "We'd get all these meek kids who wouldn't even talk in the beginning and are now joking and bugging other people. It's really cool to see that from a Grade 8."
John Carreon had heard about Code Blue through his school when he was in Grade 11. The police training program intrigued Carreon, who aspires one day to become a police officer. After graduating last year, Carreon asked the Code Blue facilitators if he could come back and volunteer with the program. He says it's something he looks forward to every Friday.
"I just wanted to be continually a part of it," says Carreon. "I really liked the competition you have against yourself and against your fitness levels and mental ability."
Getting the kids active was important for Derrick, but it's the lessons they learn in the process that he's seen as the greatest benefit to Code Blue.
"We didn't expect it to turn into this," says Derrick. "It's created an understanding that no one's better than anyone else; we have all walks of life participating, but that doesn't matter, and they get that because everyone sheds the same blood, sweat and tears by the end."