Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:05 Hello, how are you doing today? My name is <inaudible> show. I'm going to start it off the same way. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Warms my heart. Believe how many people are tuning in live and how many, how many were watching her Walker you recorded that I know you can be doing so many of any other thing your time. I really do appreciate you taking the time to spend with us with us. And on that note, note, Tanner Tanner hit them with them with road.
Speaker 1 00:00:36 Welcome to the max any morning show.
Speaker 0 00:00:45 Okay. So I'm really excited for many, many medicines since a little boy. So I'm super pumped for him to be here as per usual. I'm not knocking these, get, they do a better job. So Tanner hit our lovely camera camera. We're going to let you introduce your seat yourself. So who are you? Are you, what do you do? What do you all, what are you all about?
Speaker 2 00:01:07 Uh, my name is my name is <inaudible> executive director for the Northern lights, health foundation, all, and <inaudible> Anthony talks about some of the things foundations do.
Speaker 0 00:01:22 All right. All right. So let's just get right into the hell family foundation. So you guys, I believe one of the best, best COVID events of the year with your Christmas.
Speaker 2 00:01:37 Yeah. Festival <inaudible> in, uh, August, September for something, anything that's going to happen often, but yeah, thank you. It was really off it. Wasn't just us contract chargers and you know, people with a sponsorship that were actually helping us to do it. So really
Speaker 0 00:02:01 Great, great, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Lake. Don't get me wrong. I, I enjoyed McDonnell Island, um, when we used to be there, but I remember as a kid going to father Merck, the merchandise gym, and it being a very intimate, like cozy environment for Christmas, you know? And so having it at the airport this year kind of brought me back to that where I'm like, Oh yeah, this is, this is nice. So my question about all of the different events you did cause you had a bunch of different things that you did. And my little boy loved all of them, especially, I don't know what you called it, but the Christmas lights.
Speaker 2 00:02:35 Yeah. Bright nights. Yeah. Brain needs where we were so lucky. We partnered with Suncor Syncrude club, 63, the regional municipality, wood, Buffalo. And they really put a team together that would normally be doing staff Christmas parties and said, you know, what can we do for the community? And then how can we even further benefit? And which is where health foundation came in. So they did all the infrastructure, brought the lights up from Edmonton, with a crew, uh, you know, prepared that space. Um, we were able to secure four nights that we sold tickets for. So the community could come. I mean, crazy. I just think about the weather that at that particular time it went from plus seven plus eight to minus 30 and everything in between. And you know, you couldn't have put any more cars through if you tried it. People just loved it, loved it, lined up, down the block. I loved it. It was great.
Speaker 0 00:03:33 So my thought pro and what I want to ask you is about your thought process actually. Like, um, I've been kind of critical to some of the events that have gone on online. Like everybody's trying their best and like, Hey, listen, it's hard time. So you try to do whatever you're going to do. Um, I find that some of the events just fall flat and not everybody's going to attend them. Right. But you guys were able to pull off some amazing events. Like you said, that like literally last minute things were changing and they were very unique, um, in regards to like, Hey, everybody had to do different things, but they, in my opinion, all worked. So how did you guys come up with these different unique ideas to pull off the festival of trees and in a different way?
Speaker 2 00:04:15 Yeah. You know, one of the things that we think about ourselves anyway is that we're really open to opportunities. And, uh, and we, we like to call it breaking the mold or breaking the cycle of something. So if something's been done for 30 some years, it doesn't mean you have to continue to do it the same way, but you have to keep the elements. So that's with the festival, we approached it of, it's a festival of trees. We're going to need trees. We're going to need to display them. It's gotta be beautiful. People have to be able to see them somehow. Are they going to be able to come through? Like they normally would with a thousand people in the room to see them? No, they're not. So we're going to need to extend the time period. What does that look like? Oh, we can only have 40 people in our, all right. We can do that. How can you know? And we just kept building it from there. We can do that. Adding in all the online, like turning the silent auction completely into online. We did that in two weeks. We'd never even used the program before, uh, putting the online raffle, the toy box. Did you, did you see the toy box? Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:05:22 My son was pretty choked. He didn't win it.
Speaker 2 00:05:25 Our friends with AP maintenance, they, they really love doing the toolbox. So that was great. And turning it all on to online tickets meant we could manage it at the backend without all the normal volunteers that we needed because volunteers were also a struggle. People could not come to things or they could come in very measured ways. So if I had volunteers, I couldn't necessarily have guests. Like you have to have only a certain number of people in the room. Uh, so that's basically how we approached it is we know the elements. We want beautifully decorated Christmas trees that are auctioned off to a willing audience of people who want to be part of celebrating the season and then opening it up. So the space is available for everyone to come in. Right. And that's how
Speaker 0 00:06:14 Well you guys did a great job. Like I, I attended all of it. I thought it was really good. And even the online auction that you have there, I think a lot of people, uh, I can only speak for myself. Let's not speak for others. Um, over zoom calls, I'm overlooking at things online that are virtual, and I can assure you that I was super engaged and I watched from start to finish your live auction. It was done so well. And it was so engaging. So, and I cannot say that for any other and I'm sorry for every anybody else who put something on, I can assure you, I didn't watch. Anybody's maybe the first five minutes and I was like out, but your guys engage me for the full time.
Speaker 2 00:06:50 Again, keeping an element in bringing in Danny Hooper. He's hilarious. And he's just so darn good at what he does. And he knows everybody, you know, that's going to be part of the bidding. Uh, so he can, you know, make it exciting. And it was his first gig in a year because his stuff kept getting canceled. So drove up him and his new wife drove up to, to forming Marie, spend some time going around the town, having a look and just, he just loved it. So that energy was coming through, even though it was a zoom, as you mentioned, and yeah, it was fun
Speaker 0 00:07:27 In regards to the festival of trees. It's so successful because people know you as well. I think that's a huge element because you've been in this community for many years. So let's hear about that. So what brought you to,
Speaker 2 00:07:37 How long have you been here for a bunch of different hats in this community? We moved here in October of 90, um, with a four year old and a five month old baby and my husband was going to work for Suncor at the time. And, uh, that was, you know, we were just coming to start a new home, new life. So that was the basics of it. Um, and, uh, I immediately got to go to job with, uh, Kendall college as the bookstore manager and move from the bookstore manager over a number of years through community education programming. I think that was actually one of my favorite jobs. I did that for six years running the non-credit and, uh, programs that were brought in from other universities and brokered programs, that kind of stuff. Um, that was great. That's where I met everybody, I think, in the, in town and then moved on into a distance. It dedication for three years with, uh, Alberta North and then back to the college for, uh, to run the foundation and then, um, in a leadership role as the vice president for community relations. So quite a, quite a long history there, and it just built everything just built from one step to the, to the next. So it was really, it was great, uh, out Nexon, uh, in community engagement and Aboriginal relations, which I loved. And then now the last, almost five years going on five years, this summer, uh, with the health foundation.
Speaker 3 00:09:07 That's awesome. Cool. Yeah, definitely. You've had a career that has allowed you to be in contact with a lot of individuals in town and make a very huge impact in a lot of people's lives to run a hospital. So can you tell me a little bit about like the foundation and how like those funds are distributed and how it all works?
Speaker 2 00:09:59 And it's interesting, you mentioned the hospital because that's seems like that's all the money goes, but it's actually, we're we're fundraising for Alberta health services, North zone area 10, which is the Conklin to Fort Chippewan region. So it's supporting HS projects in that region. Most of it feels like it goes to the hospital. And then of course, we've, we've, uh, spent about five years working on the gratitude campaign and that was all pretty much at the hospital. So it's, you know, um, minimally invasive surgical suites. So that's bringing in surgeries that haven't been able to be done here in the communities. So urology's, and, uh, you know, various other things, um, palliative care, totally renovating those a couple of rooms and turning it into three huge family friendly suites, which are well in use. It's an unfortunate side effect of, you know, thing, but, uh, at least we now have proper spaces for it and we, we help purchase equipment.
Speaker 2 00:11:05 We help purchase, um, new technologies that are coming innovations. We support programs that you may never even hear of like the baby friendly initiative, uh, which has been supported by the health foundation for five years now. And, uh, our public health is working towards their certification in, uh, uh, baby friendly and having this has to be a baby friendly community. So you can be breastfeeding wherever you need to be. You can be doing, uh, whatever the supports are. There's a milk bank. There's, these are all odd little things, but they're supported through health foundation, right? Because what happens is you're, you're all tax, we're all paying into service. That's pretty basic. And if you want the next level or advanced or movement in a certain direction where we see in this community, children are really important. Mental health is really important. Um, making sure we have super strong, uh, infrastructure for emergency services. You know, we may have deeper pots in some of those areas and then lighter in something else. Right, right. We'll support programs that come forward like in John VA, a food security program for three years that we help support with, uh, creating community gardens. These are, you just don't hear most of you just kinda think hospital.
Speaker 0 00:12:29 And that's why I wanted you to explain it a little bit. So outside of your events though, and before we get into the Mac mini, cause I think it is it's crucial to support, um, you have these events people, and I think that's where most of like the large donations come from, but for the general population who wants to get involved outside of those events, how they, how can they support you guys?
Speaker 2 00:12:47 Oh, you know, they're supporting through attending events, they're supporting through purchase raffle tickets, they're supporting through outright donations. And we do have a very large donor base of people who are engaged with us as donors. And remember donor donations are charitable, but they're also a gift from the heart. So they usually have a story. And we're really happy to, to know that story about why they're invested in healthcare. Um, they can pray. They can, um, be, you know, part of a volunteer base that's coming to help us out as well. It's just really the ways to get engaged are really endless and the ways to support, uh, Cassius King of course, because we are always trying to fund something. So I should mention as well that, uh, the decisions for funding are not made by the health foundation staff. We have a community board of directors and everything that's brought forward from Alberta health services, uh, comes through the health foundation.
Speaker 2 00:13:50 We present to the finance committee who presents to the board and makes their decisions. What are the programs and how are we going to secure the funding? Sometimes we have money. So we have money from events, it's unrestricted. So the board can then allocate that. Right. But sometimes we don't and we look at something, we think, boy, there must be a group that's interested in helping to support that. So we might go and talk to them first or there might be, um, uh, if it's especially a capital development, there might be a reason for a larger corporation to come and be involved in it.
Speaker 0 00:14:27 Fascinating. So, yeah, there's a lot more, uh, than just getting the money to give to the house.
Speaker 2 00:14:32 Oh yeah. No, it doesn't, it's, it's a full, full business, like anything else. And, um, uh, there's a lot of thought that goes into every action. And so both on the health services side, they're not prepared to put projects in front of us that they can't support. Right. So there's a, there's a great deal that happens long before it comes to us. And then our work, sometimes it can be 18 months before we can say, yep, we're good now to support that one, we've got the funds put together. Cool. All right. So now we're going to put you a little bit on the hotspot. It's a segment called the Mac city minutes. So this is when the man behind the camera gets to put his voice on film. So Tanner hit us with the Mac city minute, please.
Speaker 4 00:15:14 You today. What has working with the hospital taught you about the people of Fort McMurray?
Speaker 2 00:15:20 Oh, well, it's really taught me that people are generous and, uh, that health is super important to everybody. We see it right from when they're coming in, uh, as maternity patients, maybe feeling a little stress and, and looking for, you know, to go to the non-stress test area and have that baby monitored right through to, you know, putting a name on a wall for the, for the baby. And then they're, they're attending an event. We just see the people in all the stages and it's, it's really rewarding.
Speaker 4 00:15:58 Okay. Question number two for you today. What is your favorite part about working for the Northern lights, health foundation?
Speaker 2 00:16:05 I have great team and great board. These are, these are really good reasons to work there. And I think knowing that, um, your actions are causing a reaction within the community and it's developing something. I really have this belief. I know it's supposed to be quick minute, uh, belief that, um, we have to do all this together. We still remain an isolated community up here and if we don't build it, nobody else will. So we've got to keep going on that strength
Speaker 4 00:16:36 Question. Number three, growing up. Did you think you'd be doing what you do here in Fort McMurray?
Speaker 2 00:16:42 Uh, I grew up on an air force base. Um, started out in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and over to Germany and then ended up in cold Lake. I had no clue, but I will tell you both. My parents were largely involved in, uh, the lions organization. So I have grown up, um, in marching bands supporting, uh, you name it, everything that had to be done, us kids were involved with it. We were part of the lions as I guess, Cubs. Uh, so that service mentality has stayed with me. So I don't didn't know this would be it, but this is it.
Speaker 4 00:17:19 Question number four, when you want to relax, what do you do?
Speaker 2 00:17:23 Um, I'm a escapist. I love to read. I love to make little drawings of meaningless to most people, but I like to do it anyway. Um, I like to go for some walks, but mostly I like to just get in my pajamas and read her
Speaker 4 00:17:42 Last question for you today. W what's one thing people can do to support your cause that they might not know about? Uh,
Speaker 2 00:17:50 They might not know that they can donate through lots of different tools. There's our website on social media. Even if you use the Facebook app, um, to make a donation, eat will eventually make its way through it to us. We'd rather know you. Um, we'd rather that you come through our web portal, um, but you can phone. You can talk to me anytime. All the numbers basically ring to my cell phone. Now, now that we're sort of working remotely, um, honestly, to just call us, talk to us,
Speaker 0 00:18:20 Those have been your five questions. There you go. None of those five questions, marching band, marching band. What instrument? Well, I was a majorette. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 00:18:31 A major majorette is the one with the little, with the batons. I was a Touro or her little white boots with skirt.
Speaker 0 00:18:40 Really? Very cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:43 Yeah. My dad was a snare drum player and uh, we were my sister and I were majorettes. Have you retained any of those skills? Oh yeah. You should see me with a golf club. I'm like twirling my potters mostly because everything else is too long, but yeah, just kind of, you know,
Speaker 0 00:18:59 Wow, listen, I'm not a big fan of golf if I don't have to, but I, you and me are going golfing this year because I want to see this trick.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 A lot of dancing goes on in the golf course. I can't stay still. I don't golf or, you know, but, uh, yeah, I can still do that. How does so cool. See body has muscle memory for everything you ever learned.
Speaker 0 00:19:19 Right? Right. See, this is why I do the Mac city morning show. Cause I love to like learn like weird things about people. And that is super unique that like, if I wasn't doing this show, I don't know if I've ever would've come up with that one. So. Cool. All right. Well that's it. So Cindy, thank you very much for coming today. That's the end of our time, but, uh, please. I hope that you'll be coming back again and again, I tell this to all my guests. I truly mean it. Please come back, especially with the foundation. If you have anything going on, this is a great way to kind of showcase and get it out there. Perfect. Cool. So everybody at home, once again, thank you very much. LA Pierre Mac city morning show. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to tune in today.
Speaker 0 00:20:01 And for every other episode that you've tuned into. And I was talking to my mom yesterday about this show and she didn't know cause she missed an episode and she said, Hey, Elliot, uh, I missed an episode. How can I see it? I know that sounds kind of silly, but it was a question she had. So if you've missed an episode and you're unable to find it on Facebook or you're only seeing the clips, please go check out the YouTube channel. Everything is saved there for eternity subscribe. Don't forget to subscribe. Listen, I don't, I, this might not sound like a lot to some people, but uh, over the weekend we had like eight subscribers. And when I checked yesterday, 45 subscribers on YouTube. So people want to hear that's it. So yeah. Subscribe on YouTube. That's the way to easily find the videos if you're not looking on Facebook. So other than that have a great day. I'll see you tomorrow. Peace. I just
Speaker 1 00:21:03 Talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
