MELFORT— The Melfort RCMP treated Cadence Flaata, a community member, with a surprise drive-by parade for her 15th birthday.
The parade on April 19 contained local RCMP members in their squad cars, EMS with an ambulance, and family members in their own vehicles.
Cadence has a history with the RCMP.
In 2017, she was made an honourary RCMP officer. The RCMP had a Red Serge suit made for her and she spent the day with some members of the force. In 2018, she was made junior minister at the legislative assembly in Saskatchewan for inclusion month – where she wore her Red Serge suit.
Both are honourary titles that contain no power or authority.
“She considers them her buddies,” said Cadence’s father, Darren Flaata. “Every time she sees the RCMP she has got some pretty big smiles.”
Darren said the drive-by was requested by a family friend who saw Cadence’s newly renovated RCMP themed room.
“Within lockdown we have been home and started doing a bunch of renovations and she decided to paint her room RCMP colours,” Darren said. “So I shared it on Facebook and one of our friends contacted the RCMP and said, ‘hey, Cadence is doing this again, it would be cool if you reached out again and did a drive-by for her.’”
He said his daughter was overwhelmed by the surprise.
“We didn’t expect it to be the way that it turned out. There was a lot of RCMP that drove by and flashing their sirens and the horns and just the family. She was pretty overwhelmed and giddy with everything that took place.”
Darren estimated about 25 to 30 cars in total.
After the parade, they pulled over by the side of the house for a birthday greeting, and presented her a challenge coin from the Melfort detachment.
Darren said that he believed his daughter’s connection with the RCMP helped make the surprise happen.
“Kind of has a personal connection to them,” he said.
“With all the social distancing and being in isolation, she talked about that quite a bit, ‘I won’t be able to see my friends and family’ so it was nice just to have that moment for her.”
