If there's one subject that should be easy to deal with, it's the recognition and merits that APR has received over the first 6 years of its activities. Easy, yes, but also tricky if you don't want to fall into navel-gazing or pretentiousness. I have no intention of doing so.
I'd like to start by stressing - and I didn't have the opportunity to do so often enough when these honours were awarded - that it's thanks to the motivation, determination and constancy of each and every one of its volunteers that ARP has had, and continues to have, an impact on the neighbourhood. And as Camille Renaud so aptly wrote in her 2014 article on the 20th anniversary: "It is the global vision of ARP's work that allows us to conclude that no prize or merit can match the positive repercussions that extend from one end of the Plateau sector to the other."
In 1996, she was awarded the Prix de l'Organisme communautaire de l'année by the City of Hull, which recognizes an organization that stands out for its achievements and community contribution.
As I mentioned in the Sixth Commemorative Article, in the autumn of the same year, the City, together with the Commission Hull, ville en santé, awarded the two associations of Plateau and Manoir-des-Trembles the prestigious Mérite de la Pomme d'Or 1996 prize for the reforestation project in the Plateau and Manoir-des-Trembles sectors. 
In 2000, the Prix du Mérite municipal covering the Outaouais administrative region was presented in Quebec City by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Metropolis, Madame Louise Harel, in the presence of the mayor and members of parliament. As outgoing president at the time, I received the award, nobly and generously mandated by my successor, Alain Pilon, who had every right to do so.
From left to right: Mayor of Hull, Yves Ducharme, Julie Carrière, Mastaï Villeneuve, Jeannine Doyle-Cormier, Marc Jacques Girard, Minister Louise Harel and MNA Roch Cholette.
In conclusion, I can affirm that our volunteer organization has never invested its efforts in receiving recognition and merit, but the fact of receiving it has enabled and still enables us today, through the unconditional, spontaneous and personal nature of recognition, to be recognized for who we are, for what we do, and it gives us the motivation to continue by giving meaning to the mission we have chosen to carry out.
It is in all humility that I end this last article, anxious once again to pay tribute through these recognitions and merits to every volunteer, generous and professional, with whom I have had the pleasure and honor of working during these first years of ARP.
Volunteers without whose contribution our association, as dynamic and committed as ever, would not have the status it has acquired over these 30 years of community involvement.
It has been a pleasure and an honour for me to participate in the commemoration of APR's 30th anniversary through this series of articles.
Sincerely,
Dive into the captivating history of the ARP! Click the button to explore the nineth article of our special series celebrating 30 years of history.