Local grade 7 student's Pier 21 video needs your vote

A local student is in the running for a national contest and you can help her get to Canada’s History Youth Forum in Ottawa this fall.

St Luke grade 7 student Alexandra Dech has the only local video entered in the Young Citizens contest.

She won the Young Citizens Award at the North Bay Heritage Fair.

“Hi, I’m Ally Dech and I’m from North Bay, Ontario, Canada and today I’m in Halifax, Nova Scotia visiting Pier 21,” her video begins, as she documents her family’s arrival in Canada from Naples, Italy in the 1960’s. “During this video you will come to realize how important Pier 21 is to Canada, and to me.”

Later in the video she interviewed her uncle Carmine Riccuiti, who arrived at Pier 21 on November 6th, 1966 at the age of 18.

They talked about how the family took the train to Montreal, then North Bay.

“I open the window and I see snow on the left, snow on the right, tree on the left, tree on the right,” Riccuiti recalls in the video.

Online voting in the contest starts today (Monday) at 9 am and runs until July 7th.

There are 200 videos in all.

13 finalists will be selected based on the online vote with a panel of judges to select the remaining 13.

CLICK HERE to check out her video and to vote