Kenndal Marsden says she had been looking forward to the day she received her police officer badge since she was a child.
"When I was young, I always wanted to be a police officer," said Marsden.
Marsden was one of five new rookie recruits along with Dustin Rice, Noah Coulombe, Jacob Dalton-Kaufman and Steven Wood.
Rice and Coulombe also grew up in North Bay.
All of the new recruits attended either Canadore College Police Foundations or received a Criminal Justice degree from Nipissing University.
Constable Marsden attended both Canadore and Nipissing.
"I came to school here in North Bay and I was really drawn to the community," noted Marsden.
"I come from a small town so this is a bigger city for me. However, it has that small-town feel still where everyone kind of knows one another, you get to be familiar with the people you are working with and the people that you see in the community so that is really what drew me to North Bay."
While the service has been working hard to find experienced officers, Longworth believes there is still a lot of value in the new recruits coming fresh out of school and into the service.
"We need the seasoned, experienced veterans, but we do need that new life," explained Longworth, who was sworn in as Chief in late March.
Longworth is also impressed with some of the life experience some of the new officers bring to the service. For example, Marsden has worked as a Fire Ranger with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Steven Wood has worked as a Crisis Worker at the North Bay Regional Health Centre, and Jacob Dalton-Kaufman was in the Algonquin Regiment within the Canadian Armed Forces.
"They all come from different walks of life, they bring their own set of experiences and expertise to the table but we encourage them to just be themselves, be willing to be vulnerable and to step up and show up every day," said the new Chief.
"Not just physically but show up wanting to make a difference every day and I challenge my recruits, I want to hear those same responses five to 10 years from now and I hope to see that same excitement, that same enthusiasm because this job has a way to take that away from you."
Longworth also admits it is becoming harder to find good recruits.
"Staffing across all sectors it is getting harder and harder to find good people," explains Chief Longworth.
"We try to attract the best, we look for the best, but we are competing with an every shrinking pool of talented people so the fact that they have chosen to come here speaks well of the organization because they could have gone anywhere and they have chosen this community and this organization which is good for us. We need that new life coming in."
