The memory of a former Township councillor who found her calling as a child protection worker will live on in the form a memorial leadership award which will be given to a University of the Fraser Valley student.

The award in Heather McMullan’s name has been established by her husband, Rick.

McMullan, one of the most passionate and colourful people in Township politics in the 1990s, died of cancer on Aug. 1 at the age of 51.

McMullan was a councillor from 1993 to 1999, and when her political career ended, she enrolled in UFV’s social worker program from which she graduated in 2002. She then found work as a child protection social worker with the provincial Ministry of Children and Families.

The annual leadership award will give preference to mature students in the social work degree program who have demonstrated leadership in the community. The award has been endowed with a lead gift of $20,000, and the goal is to raise additional funds to increase the endowment to $25,000 which will produce an annual award of approximately $1,000, based on current investment rates.

“Heather didn’t find her true calling, which was social work, until later in her life,” Rick McMullan said.

“I know she would have loved the idea of supporting other mature students who wanted to join the fight to protect children.”

In January, her colleagues voted Heather McMullan the Employee of the Month for B.C. The accolade came after her involvement with a particularly difficult and distressing case of a shaken baby.

“She was so passionate about her job,” her daughter Kylie said shortly after her mother’s death.

Her mother would sit and rock the baby in her arms “because she wanted to make sure it was held.”

The Aldergrove Rotary Club, of which Rick McMullan is a member, held a fundraising Peruvian dinner on Oct. 23 and 24, and is donating net proceeds to the endowment for the UFV leadership award.

Members of the community who would like to make a donation to the Heather McMullan Memorial Endowment Leadership Award or learn more about it may contact Ryan Koch, director of development at UCFV, at 604-851-6326 or they can visit the UFV web site at www.ufv.ca.