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When Grace Parkes took over her older brother’s Flamborough Review paper route two years ago, she had no idea she would end up making deliveries of a different kind — earning top honours in the process.
The nine-year-old Waterdown girl was a contestant in the recent Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board Student Public Speaking Forum. The young orator was among 70 students in Grades 4 to 8 to compete in the event.
Parkes’ speech, titled “Don’t Forget to Tip Your Papergirl,” was the favourite among Grade 4 finalists and gave the audience insight into what it is really like for young carriers who, week after week, deliver the news to the community’s doorstep.
Grace was selected to represent her Grade 4 at the board-wide competition finals at Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School after her speech and delivery was among the best at the school level.
The St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Elementary School student’s family is “incredibly proud,” said dad Mike. “She excels at almost everything she does, but this was very impressive.
“She’s a natural.”
Grace said she practised her speech before a familiar audience of family and neighbours. The speech itself was peppered with interesting facts about newspaper delivery and featured plenty of humour, helping to drive home the importance of tipping your carrier.
“An average paper delivery person in Waterdown gets paid 12 cents a paper. Can you believe it?” reads Grace’s speech. “I’d have to deliver 50 papers to buy one DQ sundae. Wikipedia said paper delivery started in 1833, that’s 190 years ago, and I make 12 cents. I think it’s time to get a raise, don’t you?”
In her speech, Grace enlightened audiences about the delivery process, how the paper gets delivered to her Waterdown home on Wednesday and how she’s responsible for sorting the papers and flyers into separate piles before assembling the reading materials and heading out the door to deliver by the Friday morning delivery deadline.
“Having a paper route takes a lot of responsibility and you have to be good at time management,” she said in the speech. “Two things I really like about my paper route are, I get to know all of my neighbours and it’s good exercise.”
Although she had a lot of fun, Grace admitted it was a little “nerve-racking” to deliver her speech to Grade 4, 5 and 6 students at her school.
“You’re in the gym and there’s lots of kids,” she said.
As she moved on in the competition, she would join more than a dozen youth selected to deliver their speeches before a panel of four judges at the regional level. Grace was the last to take to the space, “so I got to hear everyone’s speeches and they were all really, really good.”
“I was really excited that I got chosen to move up because speaking in front of people is hard,” she said. “I thought it was like a really good opportunity.”
As for that paper route?
“It’s really fun,” she said.
“Everyone is super nice … I get to make money and then I can put it into my college savings and my dad helps me do that.”