Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Good morning, Fort McMurry, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the maxi morning show. I am your host, Elliot Pierre, and we're going to start the show off the same way we always do with gratitude from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank everybody tuning in and or watching this later, you could be doing a million things with your time, and I can't tell you how happy I am that you're spending it with us on that note. Tanner hit him with the,
Speaker 1 00:00:31 Oh, she caught me loves when you're listening to the next, then the morning show.
Speaker 0 00:00:40 All right. And we're back. So once again, I'm excited to talk to our guests here today. Uh, I've known her for a bit, but we really have never had a chance to sit down and have a chat. Like most of the people in Fort McMurray when we're busy, just because we see each other, it doesn't mean we actually get to sit down and have a nice conversation. So that's going to change today. But as per usual, I don't introduce my guests. I let them introduce themselves. So on that note, can you please tell everybody who you are and what's your address?
Speaker 2 00:01:05 I can. Yep. So my name is Mandy McDonald. I am the executive director for Justin's lady youth foundation.
Speaker 0 00:01:11 Cool. Very cool. So, uh, Justin slate, we'll talk about that a little bit. And the youth foundation, I actually grew up with Justin. Um, I met him when I was, I think, six or seven kindergarten, so I know the foundation quite well, but for the people at home who don't know what it's all about, can you please, uh, it was just, uh, an overview of what, what the foundations.
Speaker 2 00:01:32 Yeah, no, I sure can. Um, so Justin's laid your foundation started in 2005. Um, I'm sure that a lot of the viewers out there know, but it's after Justin slayed. So he was a 21 year old who got into a car accident on the highway, um, after in 2004, that had happened. So in 2005, after donations were taken in for to start a charity. So then they opened up the Justin's lady foundation. Um, I think for most people they know us more for our drop-in center. That's located in Borealis park and that's known as the dugout. Um, so what we do is we are a registered nonprofit and we focus on youth ages, 12 to 17 years old. We provide free programming, community engagement, organized programs, volunteerism, and casual drop-in center. Everything that we do is free of charge because we want to break down those socioeconomic statuses. So anything that's offered within our drop-in center, or if it's an organized program, that's another parts of the community everything's free of charge so that everybody gets to take pers.
Speaker 0 00:02:27 That's awesome. And it's a pretty cool building. I got to say, yeah, I used to work in that building actually as a summer programmer for the municipality. We used to call it the hacks center. Yep. And then you guys have taken it over. You've been there for how many years now would you say,
Speaker 2 00:02:42 Oh God, I think, well, since I would say God we've had the dugout, I can't, I can't honestly remember when the Doug had actually opened. Um, I think that it started pretty much in 2005. Right. I know that we had office space and other places. Right. And then we use that as the dropping center, because it was being used as municipality building at the time too. Right. Um, and then eventually we had some offices that were inside that building. So we used to share it with the municipality. Right. And then eventually there was other locations that opened up under the city and then we took the ownership of the building over ourselves. Right. So we still lease it from the city. And we're very thankful for that. They pretty much give us it free of charge every single year so that we can run this as a drop-in center. Um, main goal for it. Keep kids off the streets. Right. Give them something to do. That's productive, make them into responsible adults, give them some life skills, whatnot too. Right.
Speaker 0 00:03:26 Great. And, uh, there's one responsible adults that, uh, used to drop into the center. Yeah. I think we both know him quite well. He's the man behind the camera. His name is Tanner,
Speaker 2 00:03:36 Right? Yeah. Who's this
Speaker 0 00:03:40 He's pretty responsible. Hey, you show up every day and we get the show out. So that's something. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:03:44 Honestly Tanner's one like the first kids, like when I had started there, cause I've been with Justin's lady foundation for 10 years now. Right. So for me, um, I only became the executive director in 2016, so I kind of started off in the youth worker position. So that's the time that I knew Tanner that I got to work on the floor. So that was quite the experience.
Speaker 0 00:04:03 Very cool. So you started off, you weren't always in the position you were in, you started kind of entry-level and grew into that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:10 Yeah, because I had been there for so long, too. Right. So definitely went through different job positions and whatnot. Um, I would say when it came to the positions that I went through, even as the program coordinator, probably one of my favorite positions there, although I do love my job as the executive director, but that's when you get that hands-on experience. Right. So like you're creating the programs, but not only are you creating them, then you're actually doing them with the youth themselves too. Right. So that was my favorite part because I mean, if you don't get that opportunity to connect with the youth that are coming in and out of the door, you kind of lose that big part of it. Right. Like that's the part, that's the most important. So I always give props to my youth workers. Like I have three youth workers now.
Speaker 2 00:04:46 And honestly I say to them all the time, like that is the hardest position, right. Because you need to have certain things in your life, like empathy, empathy, things like that. So that you can actually connect with the youth that come in they're skills that I have as an executive director, some of those can be taught. Right. But when it comes to a youth worker, those things are just things that you're kind of born with, the things that you learn throughout life. Right. And your own life experiences that you go through. So, you know, it's a, it's something that you take the experiences and give that to the youth that are coming into the center. So yeah.
Speaker 0 00:05:14 Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So in regards to your story, where are you from?
Speaker 2 00:05:19 Or Cape Breton? Yeah. I'm from glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Um, went to school there, uh, some university switched over to college there. So I graduated from Nova Scotia, community college. Um, and then, so my first time out in Fort McMurray moved here in 2007, um, worked at a couple of places just as summer jobs and whatnot. Then I went back home, did another year of schooling and then came back here and stay here permanently after that. So meet at my home, had two kids here. Um, it's been awesome. So this is our home, it's our community. Right. So,
Speaker 0 00:05:50 Oh yeah. Okay. I love it. So you stayed here and you decided to raise kids. Now you get back prior to COVID to Cape every once in a while or? Oh no,
Speaker 2 00:05:58 I haven't been in the back there in a really long time. To be honest with you. No, that's, you know, it's like my mom's 66 years old right now. Right. So for me, um, to travel back home to go and see my mom, I don't want to put her at risk of anything right now either. Right. So, and my mom is, you know, my mom's my mom, like I know that she's a little bit paranoid about those things too. Plus in Nova Scotia, like, you know, in my opinion, they've been doing things the right way. Right. They've kind of kept things pretty closed off there. Um, so, you know, once things lift a little bit, I'd prefer for my mom to actually come out here. Right. Because it's just, you know, instead of three of us flying home to go and see my mom, it's better to bring her out here. And she actually really loves this community as well, too. Right. So I'm looking forward to getting her back here too.
Speaker 0 00:06:36 Yeah. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah. Come and spend time with her grandkids. No doubt. 12 fingers cross sooner rather than later. Maybe this summer. No, for sure. I'm hoping to get on a plane personally. Like it's yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:48 Mine will be to like a trip, like a relaxing trip that I don't need to do anything.
Speaker 0 00:06:52 That's right. That's right. So working with the Justin youth slate foundation, do you have any, I'm assuming you never met the guy? No. I heard any good stories about him.
Speaker 2 00:07:03 I did. Well, I've heard quite a few. Right. Um, you know, I, uh, with his family, a lot of his family members living in town here, a lot of them are board members too. Right. Because you know, I mean, they keep the connection to the foundation. That's great. Right. Cause you get to learn new things and have conversations about Justin. What not. So we have, uh, a great dynamic at the board table cause we have different community members there too. Right. But when you get to have some of his family members there too, they have that emotional attachment to it as well. Right. So it kind of creates good conversations at the board table and whatnot as well. Right. I don't know. Like, I don't know if you knew him.
Speaker 0 00:07:35 I did. I grew up with them. I met Justin when I was probably six or seven years old ECS, kindergarten, I guess nowadays. Right. And my story, cause I was actually a new year coming day. So I was talking about to my parents about it. Um, and I remember when he came over to the house one Saturday, cause I grew up in Dickins field. He was in Timberly. So like a lot of the time, like that's a far distance. So back in the day
Speaker 2 00:07:58 There was a lot of development in Timberly back then, email
Speaker 0 00:08:00 Wasn't and same with Dickins field. It was brand new. So, uh, basically it wasn't like parents nowadays where you like you make play dates. Yeah. It's just like you played with the kids that were closer. Yeah. So I remember him coming over and the reason he came over was, uh, his basement had flooded. Right. And he was telling me all about, Oh Elliot, you should. And we're seven. Yeah. So all the basement was flooded. You could put a boat down there and as a kid, you don't know what a basement flooding means. So I'm just like, Oh my God is your whole house under water. He's like, Oh, it goes up. So eyelid and we were talking about like getting in a sailboat, maybe later that day I'm going to hang out in his basement and maybe going for a swim. And uh, it's pretty cool. Really cool. And you're seven. You're like indoor swimming pool. Yeah. Um, anyways, I was talking to my mom about that and she's like, yeah, you guys were idiots. Like when a basement floods it's like that much on the bottom and it's just water or it's sewage water. Like you're not going swimming in it. Yeah. But yeah. That's like my first memory hanging out with him is yeah. Him talking about his basement flooding and how we're going to ride sailboats. So yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:01 I know we have some of his cousins that sit on the board too. So I know that, um, some of the stories that I got from the family, even with them growing up, that Justin always protected them. Any trouble that they got into.
Speaker 0 00:09:12 Yeah. Yeah. And then we ended up going to St. Anne's together for elementary and junior high. And then in high school he went to Westwood and I went to father merch, but we still have lots of friends and we bumped into each other, all like Fort McMurray was such a small, tight knit community back in the day. Yep. Still a great community. We're still tight knit. And everybody like helps out as we see throughout the different things that happen. But like I remember back in day, you're talking 25, 30,000 tops. Right. Like, especially in that age, demographic. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:41 Even same thing when I moved here too. Right. Like when I came in 2007, it wasn't as big as what it is now. There was still a lot of development and whatnot that was going on during that time too. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:54 Oh, so many people know. It's awesome. I love to see it like positive and negative, but you know what, overall, I think there's more positive than negative. So right now you're just doing too good at this. Yeah. This is your, your natural for somebody who came in and was like, I don't know. I haven't done this in awhile.
Speaker 2 00:10:09 A live show for a long time. Prerecorded prerecorded is good because you know, I was scared that I was going to drop some swear words.
Speaker 0 00:10:15 Yeah. And sometimes we try, but you're doing too good. So I'm going to hit you with this segment a little earlier than we hit other people with it. Sure. This segment is Tanner's. He came up with it. It's called the Mac city minute. He's going to ask you five questions. I don't know what they are. Okay. So Tanner put her on the hotspot, hit her with the maxi minute
Speaker 3 00:10:35 Question. Number one. What is it like running the foundation you started out working for.
Speaker 2 00:10:40 Amazing. It's amazing. Honestly, there's not like, I guess I could say a lot, but it's fantastic. Like I said, like, you know, Tanner, I don't, I don't even know how old Tanner was when he started to come there. So he was about 12 years old. But I think the most amazing per for me is that like, especially working through different positions, I know so many teenagers in the community now that are young adults now and still talk to them on Facebook, Snapchat, things like that. Right. So like it's a good experience that they remember you, you know? And it's uh, yeah, it's great because some of them have become my friends. Some of them have become my coworkers now, too. Right. Cause I like to hire younger youth workers to come in because you know, the foundation gave me an opportunity when I was a little bit younger to go in there and kind of work my way up. Right. So for me, I like to mentor young people like that. And I want to give them opportunities that I had when I was younger. And I started there. So I do have a lot of the teenagers they used to come. When I worked on the floor, they're actually working for me now. And I've got some friends like Dannon. That's cool.
Speaker 3 00:11:38 Question number two. What is your favorite fundraiser you put on
Speaker 2 00:11:43 All tournament? Yep. Our golf tournament for sure. That's our major one. Right? We do that every single year. There's been a couple of years that it was canceled due to flooding, uh, due to the fires, things like that. Right. So COVID, you know, even last year, our golf tournament was canceled last year because you can't move forward. If you're not going to make a certain amount of money off of it, you're going to put more money into it right. Than what you're actually gonna make off of it. Um, but we are moving ahead this year so that we're doing 11 this year. We are moving ahead. So we're hoping to get a lot of people involved.
Speaker 0 00:12:10 Question number three. What is your favorite moment working with children?
Speaker 2 00:12:18 That's a hard one. Huh? I would say camping is like a big thing for me is that we used to take camping trips every single year. Um, and it was just, you know, getting to see the dynamic with the youth during the camping trips. Like, you know, we didn't realize some of us has staff that a lot of the kids that came there when we were all working on the floor, especially the management side of things right now. Um, we didn't realize that a lot of the kids that were coming there were not actually close to each other in school, but you would never know the difference. Right. Cause when they went camping, they had such a strange dynamic with each other because it seemed like they were all best friends with each other. Right. So getting to see those dynamics during camping and like helping each other out doing some, you know, fun things. I know me and Tanner had quite the experience one time when we went camping because we went tubing. And I don't know, I don't know if Tanner wants to talk on that part either, but
Speaker 0 00:13:05 Yeah, he's, he's going to now, but we'll wrap up the questions and don't worry jumping right into that question. Number four. What is your favorite part of working with Alex?
Speaker 2 00:13:16 I love Alex. I don't know. I don't even know how to answer that one. Alex is like my best friend. Right. So Alex, uh, so her name is Alex Douglas King, actually Alex Cameron King. Cause she is married now. Um, Alex is our program coordinator and she honestly, she started at Justin <inaudible> foundation a year after I did. So obviously you build a connection with each other. So she's like, you know, today she's my best friend and my coworker. Um, so honestly it's just the dynamic of getting to share that experience with working with different teenagers that I liked the most about working with Alex.
Speaker 0 00:13:47 And your final question. How has working with children affected how you deal with day-to-day life?
Speaker 2 00:13:55 Um, that's a hard one too. I think for me, it's just, you know, making sure that I carry myself a certain way. You know what I mean? Because you, you know where you're connecting with youth like that and they also want to connect with you even outside of the dugout, you know, talk to them on Facebook, Instagram, things like that. Right. Um, you just make sure that you carry yourself a certain way, right. That you want to make sure that you're always trying to set an example of what a role model or a mentor should be. So I think that it's that and I mean, it brings in a lot of experiences for my kids, right? Like I have a daughter right now who is going to compensate, like this is her first year of pretty much high school. Right. So she's 12 years old now. So like, you know, it's just some of the experiences that I went through with the youth that I was working on the floor with. I kind of bring that into knowing what my daughter is going through, I guess in high school right now. Right. So that's probably the cool,
Speaker 0 00:14:42 Cool. That was been your five questions. There we go. Now we're going to go back to question number three there, let me hear the camping story. Like tubing and stuff. Tanner,
Speaker 4 00:14:54 The camping story with tubing. It ended with me having to go to physiotherapy for a torn shoulder.
Speaker 0 00:15:01 Okay. Like I don't know how you can do that in water with a tube. So I think the people at home want to hear all about this. So please, uh, elaborate.
Speaker 4 00:15:10 They forced me to go on a tube and they, Mandy went, you're going to fall off that tube. And I went, no, I'm not. And she's like, you're gonna fall off that tube. So she instructed the boat driver to, uh, start doing boat doughnuts to create a big wake. And uh, he went over the big wake and I went, I don't know, 30 feet in the air on the tube, but I refused to, uh, let go. Um, so my one happened me. So like I held on the two with him. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I held onto the tube and we went up and uh, I didn't let go, but my one hand slipped and I went over my shoulder. Right. And like held on for dear life and swung back on and hit the ground. And basically couldn't move my shoulder for the rest of the weekend.
Speaker 0 00:16:04 Hey, I don't have a name in this scenario. Where did you go,
Speaker 2 00:16:09 Friend? We had a friend that was there as a volunteer. Right. Who was friends with some of the people that work there. So he used to come out every single year. So we had picked a different camping spot at this time, but his parents actually had a trailer set up there and they had a boat and everything. So it was wonderful to be honest with you. Like it was a great experience. Cause like I said, like a lot of the time when we went there, we didn't get the opportunity to go tubing or anything. So his parents that were there at the time, you know, offered to us and said, Hey, like we'd love. Cause kids sign waivers and things like that. Right. And they're aware of some of the activities that we do.
Speaker 0 00:16:36 Goodness. And Tanner's case
Speaker 2 00:16:40 <inaudible> together really well. Like, I mean, we were pretty sore. Like I think that we felt like we probably got hit by a train. Right. But anyway, like, you know, his, uh, his dad at the time was taking rounds and taking some of the kids out tubing. Right. So it was actually a really great experience. It's just that, you know, Tanner left out a couple of things. We decided to pick one of the tubes that was like, I think it was a three seater actually at the time because we did have another youth honest, but we always sent one of the youth workers to, so this was like my turn. So I'm going to go with Tanner. So anyway, long story short. Yeah. Tanner didn't let go of the tube. We ended up flipping up pretty much upside down, hit the water. I'm pretty sure Tanner elbowed me and yeah, we came up pretty rough, but it still came out laughing. So it was, it was still a good time
Speaker 4 00:17:20 Girl. I'm pretty sure how to concussion from hitting the water. Like she didn't know where she was afterwards. I actually went to a physiotherapist afterwards and I had torn my shoulder muscle because for like three days I was like, yeah, I can't really move my shoulder. And then my mom was like, yeah, we're going to go get that looked at it. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:17:38 Honey. So my question is like, I know Tanner and we share something in common. We are pretty stubborn. Yeah. So I'm not surprised with this story, him not holding on what's with you and this other girl. Why didn't you let go?
Speaker 2 00:17:51 I think we did, to be honest, I can't remember exactly how it is. Like he, like he said, when they're moving with the boat, right. It kind of creates those waves and stuff and we honestly didn't expect it. Right. Because you know, even the people that were, were running the boat at the time, you know, they're obviously aware that it's youth and whatnot too. And like I said, like a lot of people had really good, like a lot of fun. Right. I think that between the three of us that were on that tube that day, we were maybe a little bit more of the daredevils that we were okay with a little bit of speed, but we just really didn't see that one coming. Right. So
Speaker 4 00:18:20 It was a challenge. I was like, I am not letting go. And everybody's like, you're going to let go. I didn't let go. By the way I made it onto that too. But after we went down right. Sacrifice the shoulder, but I did it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:32 But he handled it really well. Actually. I didn't really hear any complaining the rest of the weekend. He held it together. Really good. So you wouldn't have never really knew that he was that her from it. Right.
Speaker 4 00:18:40 I didn't know. I was that hurt from, it was when he was like, what? 12 or something? I was like 14. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:18:46 So like a year or two ago. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So listen, we're getting to the end of the show here, but you need to come back again and again, and again, the next time you come back, we'll call it the Tanner episode. And you can just tell me like great stories of Tanner youth.
Speaker 4 00:19:02 Yeah. Don't worry. You guys will have an Elliot Pierre episode too. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:19:06 We can do that. Like I think we have a, one of my old friends coming on the show pretty soon here. Uh, Jillian Macintosh and uh, yeah, she's going to light me up. I can already see it though.
Speaker 4 00:19:16 We got to get James Doherty on here. Oh
Speaker 0 00:19:18 Yeah. James Doherty. Big time. Oh, you've been here long enough. I don't know if you know. No James Doherty. I don't know. I'll show you a picture. He's a good time. Yeah. So yeah. But before we cut you loose today, um, shameless plug. Before you go, please once again, tell everybody about the foundation, how they can get involved.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 Yeah. Yeah. So again, Justin's lady foundation. We run programs that are for youth. They just told to 17 years old. Uh, currently drop-in center is closed due to COVID, but we are starting to roll out the plan to reopen the center. If anybody wants to see our programs or anything that they want to get involved and they can check us out on Facebook, check us out on Instagram, Snapchat. We pretty much have everything right now. Just search up J S Y F everything will come up. All of our programs are virtual and any youth is welcome to take part.
Speaker 0 00:20:02 There we go. Awesome. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. No, you're more than welcome and definitely you will be coming back non-negotiable yeah, I totally. All right. Well, on that note, that's another show. Uh, once again, everybody at home, thank you very much for tuning in. Really do appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. It blows my mind. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 5 00:20:26 Peace. <inaudible> talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
