Teen-aged beauty queens on a mission

Taylor Foisy and Ashley Fecteau are teen-aged beauty queens on a mission.

Tonight, that mission took them to Sault Ste. Marie City Council.

Foisy is Miss Teen Sault Ste. Marie.

She'll be representing the Sault in the upcoming Miss Teen Canada World pageant taking place in Toronto in July.

Fecteau is Miss Algoma District.

She'll be representing Algoma District in the upcoming Miss Earth Canada pageant.

Both took the podium tonight to tell City councillors about their self-appointed missions and to make appeals for sponsorship.

Foisy is on a mission to raise funds for and awareness of Alzheimer's disease, her personal platform.

She said she and her team at the 2010 Miss North Ontario Regional Canada Pageant in April raised $14,000 for Northern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer, the largest single donation to that cause so far this year.

Fecteau said her platform is to promote Sault Ste. Marie as the green energy capital of North America, in hopes that people in other communities will learn from the Sault's model and adopt strategies to help the environment.

Foisy remarked that local interest in pageants seems to have declined in recent years, but pageants have shifted their focus to inner beauty and character traits, as well as talents and skills that enhance outer beauty.

Foisy and Fecteau hope to re-ignite a passion for pageants among Saultites and to find opportunities to bolster the image of pageants in general and of their beloved home region.

Both girls also hope to find some generous local sponsors willing to help them spread the word about how great the Sault and Algoma District are.

Sault Mayor John Rowswell said his office would make a contribution toward each of their missions, so, in his words: "We can look at our inner beauty."

The mayor said he believes that everyone who leaves Sault Ste. Marie for any length of time and for any reason is an ambassador for the community, but Foisy and Fecteau would get more attention than most and represent the City very well.

Ward 2 Councillor Susan Myers suggested the girls approach Sault Chamber of Commerce General Manager Shelley Barich for a list of Chamber members they could approach in search of sponsors.

Myers also told the girls that City Councillors were very proud of them and that they should go for it.

"I think we see some future City councillors and maybe mayors here today," Myers said.