Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good morning, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I'm your host, Elliot Pierre. And we're going to start the show off the same way we start every show off with a moment of gratitude. I know that you could be doing a million other things with your time. So the fact that you're spending with us truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 1 00:00:24 Oh, she caught me, loves near listened to the next any morning show.
Speaker 0 00:00:33 Okay. And we're back once again, I say this a lot, but it's the truth. One of my favorite guests is here today. Um, and that's because this person is a complete stranger to me. I have no idea who I'm going to talk to. So, uh, hope you enjoy. Cause I know I will. Um, as you guys are all already aware, I do not introduce my, my guests because, uh, they could do a better job than I can. So on that note, can you please introduce yourself to the people at home?
Speaker 2 00:00:55 Hey, people at home, I'm Kathy Steves. I am the new executive director of the United way. You're in Fort McMurray. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's so fun to be here on your show. And I know some of the guests that you've interviewed and the know that you do good things for our community, so I'm really happy to be.
Speaker 0 00:01:14 Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. So brand new to that role brand new. What are we talking? How,
Speaker 2 00:01:20 Uh, since, uh, February. Oh, wow. Yeah. So let's say three months now. Okay. Phenomenal. So new to the role of executive director, but I did volunteer with United way as a campaign chair for shell when shell was shell. Right. And then, uh, did the same thing with the arm WB. So I do have some history with the United way and certainly a lot of history in this community as, um, an advocate for being here and calling this place home and doing our best to serve the people that
Speaker 0 00:01:53 Nice. Nice. Okay. So let's rewind. How long have you been in the community for about 10 years. 10 years now. Okay. So where did you come from?
Speaker 2 00:02:03 I'm originally from winter peg, man. It's cool
Speaker 0 00:02:05 About, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 00:02:10 That's really cool. So it's very similar to Fort McMurray in the wintery sense. I love what a pic. Yeah I do too.
Speaker 0 00:02:18 There are a number of times. Um, we have, um, some friends that, uh, were in Fort McMurray, moved there. So prior to the pandemic we would go and we would visit them often. Um, I love Winnipeg, the forks. Amazing. I went to some, uh, they had this old school toy, um, shop. They're amazing. Like Winnipeg's really nice. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:02:40 It is really nice. So I have a brother there and sister-in-law and his kid. So that is, um, you know, people say, you know, they can't wait to go home. I wouldn't say that Winnipeg is home. I say, Fort McMurray is home. It's where I am with my son and where I have a circle of great friends and a great community. Um, they say, would you ever go back? Yeah, I probably, you know, maybe go back. But as of right now, as of right now, I really like it here and see myself here for a long time.
Speaker 0 00:03:16 Well, you just kind of helping me out here, you're answering the question for me. You're making the segways easy. What is it about Fort McMurray that, uh, that you love so much?
Speaker 2 00:03:25 I think it's because everybody's new. Well, I say everybody's new, but I think I've met like five people that are actually from Fort McMurray.
Speaker 0 00:03:32 Well, he just met two, really myself and Tanner are both born and raised here.
Speaker 2 00:03:36 That's seven. I know seven people who are born and raised here. And I think that, well, we can honestly say the vast majority are probably knew he a hundred percent and those people that come and choose to live in Fort McMurray, I'm not talking about the fly in fly outs. The ones that choose to live here with their families, um, can do one of two things. They quickly become entrenched in the community. They volunteer, they sign their kids up for sports and all these fun things. And they're in it with both feet. That's right. And they're friendly and they're fun. And they're great. Or there's the ones that move here. Um, and don't want to do anything with the community and, um, kind of have that little edge to them about they don't like it. But I really think that the reason they don't like it is because they've never tried or they say there's nothing to do in Fort McMurray. And I disagree, Oh, there's so much to do here. I sometimes get into little twist because there's too much to do and I can't do it all.
Speaker 0 00:04:39 That's it? That's exactly. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, um, my previous career, I used to be human resources. I was an HR manager and I was, I hired guys to fly in, fly out in some state and you're right. It's unfortunate that it's literally that polar opposite. It's either you get in and you love the community or you got this chip on your shoulder and you just want to go home. And they always said there was nothing to do. So my challenge, and this is prior to the pandemic was, it's like, just try to go to everything that happens at Kiana college. Just that facility alone. Yes, exactly. And they're just like, what are you talking about? And I'm just like between, like I know they only put on like four plays, but they have the TIFF film festival that comes there's jazz bands that play different artists, like rent out things. There's awards. There's tons of just this year alone. Yep. Just try to go to all of that, that Kiana offers. And then like, they'd come back, they'd do their research and go like Elliot. It's like, there's no way I could go to all those things. I'm like, yeah. So I guess there's something to do in Fort McMurray then isn't there. Yeah. There's so much to do in this community.
Speaker 2 00:05:42 Have you been to McDonald Island park? Right?
Speaker 0 00:05:46 Well, me and Tanner just did something fun a few weekends ago for the first time a guy took me out to the gun range. Oh, I've never been there either. I've never touched a gun before I fired how many guns did refer three guns. Yeah. It was scary.
Speaker 2 00:06:02 Yeah. But do the high ropes course at Vista Ridge
Speaker 0 00:06:05 Have also scary the end of it. I won't ruin it for anybody else, but the end of it is, uh, it's worth doing, but there are so many things to do in this community. So many things and that I feel if you don't, uh, people just aren't willing to look. And that's kind of like what I'm hoping with, like the Mac city morning show is that we bring cool people like yourself on who can talk about like what they're doing and different things in the community. So then, well, most people are on their phones all the time. So now the max any morning shows on their phone so they can see and they can be like, Oh, maybe there are more things than I thought
Speaker 2 00:06:42 A lot going on. And that's why I love it. And that's one of the things that keeps us here and, and that, um, you know, it connects you with people really quickly. When we first got here, I volunteered for food Fest. Oh, cool. And met some of the nicest people. We're still friends to this day, 10 years later, and the circles just kept growing. So we start with the food Fest and then it grows to, you know, Kiana college and then to the theater, I should say. And then it grows into, we joined the Legion pipes and drums band. And then we, we started volunteering with United way things and the circles grow and grow and grow to the point where, um, now I can go to the grocery store to the mall and walk down the halls and say, Hey, hi, how are you? And I love it. No. So many people here.
Speaker 0 00:07:29 Yeah. I feel it's, um, my Fieri behind this is like you said, like myself and Tanner are born and raised here. So it's a little bit different, but the majority of individuals do come from somewhere else. And so they know that feeling. And so then when somebody else comes into the community and they see that person, they're like, Hey, I've been where you've been, let me welcome you because that's what I would have wanted when I came, which I did receive when I came here. So it's a community of people from different places. So you want to help each other out. You want to build those connections. So the people really do become your family because we are so isolated from the rest of the world. That's exactly right. That's my thought process on that one, which makes it awesome.
Speaker 2 00:08:10 Yeah. And I had cousins that lived up here that we never got to know Trevor and Vanessa, Steve's never got to know them because they lived way up in Fort McMurray and we were in Winnipeg or wherever we were and never got to know them. And then moving here, it has been a real blessing, become close to them and their boys and have that family connection to here.
Speaker 0 00:08:31 That's awesome. Love it. So now let's get back to the United way. Yeah. So you're brand new in this position brand new yet. What are the initiatives? What are you working on? It's a, it's a different year to say the least different times. So like what's going on with the United way.
Speaker 2 00:08:47 We're moving everything pretty much to a virtual platform. Just like everybody else. Yeah. No more face-to-face events, which is hard for, I'm very extroverted and I am a very people person
Speaker 0 00:08:58 Hugger, you know?
Speaker 2 00:09:01 Um, so that's been an interesting transition, so all online and I've had to learn to use some technology that I was not having to use before. Right. Um, so campaign is going to be mostly online. Um, what else we're doing? We're doing this new thing called a three 65 small business circle. So this is launched by Nadine Finch and Lindsay Bradbury from the United way, our resource and development team. And it's for small to medium-sized businesses. So you probably know that big companies like Suncor, Syncrude, TRL, um, participate annually in the United way campaign. And they fundraise to the tune of millions of dollars. And they have been wonderful community supporters, which kind of leaves the little businesses in the shadow of the bigger businesses. And we want to recognize that they play a significant role in what we do in our community as well.
Speaker 2 00:09:57 So this three 65 small business circle is an opportunity for them to come on board and, and be part of our community growing, you know? And so it's a dollar a day. So 365 bucks. Okay. And, uh, with that comes, um, we'll share their, their logo and their business story on our website. They get invited to special events and I mean virtual for now, right? And there's all kinds of little perks and bonuses that go along with it. And it's also an opportunity for them to give back to their community, knowing that when they invest with us, they invest in their community. Every dollar stays in Fort McMurray, every dollar that goes to a social profit agency here is tracked. We follow it, we manage it. We help to grow the social profit agency. Okay. So you know that when you give to the United way, your dollar is going the extra mile. Right? And so this is an opportunity for those little businesses that play a significant role. And we know they're struggling right now and maybe their advertising and marketing dollars are stretched too. This is just another way to get it out there for the community to know that small businesses are playing a part in keeping the social profit sector.
Speaker 0 00:11:19 Yeah. That's awesome. That's an exciting thing. That's super creative. Yeah. Right on. That's a really creative way to get like individuals not only involved, but to get, like you said, their voice amplified. Exactly. Cause like, yeah, you guys have a very big platform. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. The one thing you guys have done my whole life that I've seen all around town and I just love it. It kind of gets me in the spirit of like winter is you guys thermometer? Oh yeah. I love that. I love the thermometer. Like, and you see we're competitive. That's right. That's it. And I'm competitive. And I see that every year, I'm just like, okay, look, where's it moving up to? And I just, yeah. Grown up here every year. See, that's the mom. And I'm like, I don't see it. You're a little worried. Yeah. That's right. So please don't get rid of the thermometer
Speaker 2 00:12:08 Thermometer. So we're going to have that as well. Okay,
Speaker 0 00:12:10 Cool. Put it around town. It's a good gauge. I think so too. It's a good gauge to figure out, not just cause I know everybody's on their phones and they can see, but I love when you drive around town, they used to have it up in. <inaudible> like, um, when you turn, if you were pretending like pretend that you're going to the Tim Morin's taking the long road, it used to be there by that class. And I always used to drive by and be like, Oh, look there back. We're going up. That's right. And back in the day, cause I've been here for a long time. It used to be safe way where my mom used to grocery shop. I don't know what it is now on or I'm not sure regardless that when my mom used to be driving us to Safeway to do grocery shopping, you see the thermometer during the winter and you'd be like, Oh, Hey, we're almost there. So yeah. Super cool.
Speaker 2 00:12:51 I love that idea too. No, there's lots of great things to make us more visible and for the community to see that, you know, their impact is making a difference. So what I, I was very skeptical about the United way when I first came to Fort McMurray, I didn't really know a whole lot about it. And um, there was some rumors that the executive director drove a gold-plated Lamborghini. I'm still waiting for that like bonus for signing on no. Um, I drive a 2013 Ford escape. Okay. I think when you say it like that, it sounds a tie in it, it sounds a little bit more expensive, but it's not. Um,
Speaker 0 00:13:31 Every, you know, we're very, very careful
Speaker 2 00:13:34 With where the money goes. And as, uh, as I came on board with shell to do the campaign, um, with Kaylee to catch the co-chair, we dug into the facts like we did a deep search because we're both a little leery about this organization and we weren't going to be fooled or caught into something that we didn't fully believe in. And Kaley was a master of research and digging for facts and finding things and discovered that, yeah, this is a really legit organization. It gets five star ratings in a lot of, um, categories for, uh, charitable organizations across the country and internationally. And that's when we really understood that this organization has huge value here in our community. It's been around for over 40 years, we fund 20 agencies in our community and 30 of their programs. So we're entrenched. We're here to stay. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:14:35 That's awesome. Yeah. I have a question for you and this might push us over the time limit cause I'm supposed to swing into Tanner right now. My bad. You're going to have to wait a few minutes for the Mac CD minute. I like yourself have transitioned from an oil and gas role into something that has nothing
Speaker 2 00:14:52 To do with oil and gas. Like not directly. Yeah, exactly. How have you felt seen or felt about the transition from going from shell oil and gas as it gets into now, the nonprofit sector, what's that been like for you? It's been easy shell as an international company really pays attention to what's going on in the communities where they do business. And so there was a huge push for people to give to the United way and to take care of the environment and to give where they live. If I can use that expression. Yeah. So it was a natural transition. So I took some of those lessons that I learned there and moved it into this role and think of this in a very similar way. We take care of each other. We take care of the place we live and we do our best to serve our communities. That's awesome. You, I love it. There you go. Cool. All right, Tanner. Now you can have your, your time in the sun. All right. Tanner has a segment called the Mac city minute. He's going to ask you five questions. She's I have no idea what he's going to ask you. So that's kind of what we talked about. No math questions. There we go.
Speaker 3 00:15:57 Question number one. What is the biggest surprise from becoming the director of your new job?
Speaker 2 00:16:04 The biggest surprise. Yes. Um, I have a big swanky office on the second floor of the red bull center. It was a nice surprise. Yeah. And the other surprise is they didn't give you that Lamborghini. Darn it. That was not a good surprise.
Speaker 3 00:16:20 Question. Number two. How does Fort McMurray remind you of Winnipeg?
Speaker 2 00:16:25 It's cold and the mosquitoes are the same size as in Winnipeg.
Speaker 3 00:16:29 Question number three. What is your favorite thing to do in town that people might not know? You could
Speaker 2 00:16:36 Roller Derby. I love the roller Derby team here and that's the oils Tarzan Betty's and they are a tough bunch of girls who love to skate hard and hit very hard. And I love them very much.
Speaker 3 00:16:53 Yeah. Question number four. What was the biggest thing you learned from shell you'll use in future endeavors with the United way?
Speaker 2 00:17:02 I think that, um, you should talk to everybody. Shell encouraged us to talk to anybody no matter what their position or rank in the company, that we were all equal as human beings. And I could talk to the general manager. I could talk to anybody. As long as you talked to them with kindness and respect. Yeah. There was no, um, no barriers. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:17:26 And your final question being from Winnipeg, what does Winnie the Pooh mean to you?
Speaker 2 00:17:33 We need the bull. I love him so much. Oh yeah. So he was, um, created by, I think a guy that came from Winnipeg, Hey, named after Winnipeg.
Speaker 3 00:17:43 So Winnie the Pooh actually was, uh, found by a world war, one officer and he named him after Winnipeg. And when he went overseas, he left him in a zoo in Ontario and a young boy named Kristoff. Christopher fell in love with him and his dad was the author who made Winnie the Pooh. So Winnie the Pooh is from Winnipeg.
Speaker 2 00:18:07 You trivia, everybody use that later. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:18:12 No Tanner, man. I don't know how you come up with these. Those are good. Every episode like this, this guy I'm telling you. So you brought up something in the Mac city minute there a roller Derby. Now I've seen the group on Facebook. I've never attended one of their events, unfortunately. And I would love to when, uh, he gets back up and get again, did you participate or
Speaker 2 00:18:34 I did. I played with them. No doubt. Yeah. My roller Derby name was imminent danger.
Speaker 0 00:18:39 Okay. So I got tons of questions now. Okay. Um, all right. So first and foremost it looks extremely rough and painful. It should be, it looks like you're you don't, you don't have that much padding on now. So that ground is, is wood or cement. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. So when you hit, submit is unforgiving sure is why don't you put yourself in the situation? How much fun?
Speaker 2 00:19:07 I started in, in British Columbia, in a small town called Enderby when I was teaching in seminar and they had a rough and tough roller Derby league there. So we started playing and they practiced just as hard as they played. And Oh my gosh. Was it hilarious? And so then I moved here and started with the tar sand Bettys, but working for shell and those long hours and getting on the bus and coming home and practices, I couldn't keep up with it. And since then, I think I've gotten a little bit too old to play. Although in Enderby, we had this lady on our team who was 50 and her roller Derby name was oldie. Haun
Speaker 0 00:19:45 Nice. <inaudible>
Speaker 2 00:19:47 He was an ER nurse. And boy did that come in handy? No doubt. Yeah. So usually during a game, somebody breaks something or hurt something to the point where you need to go to the ER, that was just part of the fun and bruises. Bruises were trophies and road rash was like, yeah, I love it. You walk around all the time with road rash. And it was just fun. I think it was just a really great way to vent some energy.
Speaker 0 00:20:13 Yeah. Your idea of fun. And my idea of fun, a very different,
Speaker 2 00:20:17 But roller skating around here all summer long with my roller skates on and it all, yeah. Just taking people off the sidewalk, just kidding children. You're safe. You're safe with me. I won't do that.
Speaker 0 00:20:28 Yeah. Like it's one of those sports that it's cool. And there's a movie that I, I keep saying, I want to watch, I think drew Barrymore's in it whip it that's have you seen it? Is it worth watching?
Speaker 2 00:20:41 It's very worth watching. Okay. It's always
Speaker 0 00:20:44 On, it's one of those things where I'm eventually I'm going to watch this movie. I just got around to it. And then the States they play on a banked track. I was going to ask that. So like what's the diff like why the bank track of wood looks a lot more forgiving than summit? Uh, yeah. In a way you can sure. Pick up a lot more speed on the bank tracks though. That's right. And so that, that part of it was, um, gave you more momentum to do those whips that they talk about that's right. And you just go fly over the bars. They did have a traveling track like that in Canada, but I don't know where it's at now.
Speaker 3 00:21:21 Uh, by the way, whip, it was directed by drew Barrymore.
Speaker 0 00:21:25 Oh, there we go. She wasn't actually, I knew she wasn't. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:21:27 No it's it was Elliot. It was, it was actually Elliot page before he was Elliot page. He was what was it? Oh my God.
Speaker 0 00:21:40 I don't know. Hey, listen. I like to go already. He's got a great name. Yeah. Elliot, come on now.
Speaker 3 00:21:46 Yeah, he, he chose the name. Uh,
Speaker 0 00:21:49 Ellen Ellen Ellen Ellen Ellen page. Oh, that's right. Okay. Listen, I know we're already out of time. I know we went over. Um, thank you for coming. I'm glad you had a good time. Thanks for having me. I have so many more questions about roller Derby though. Like an infinite amount of questions. So you're going to have to come back. We'd love to chat some more. Talk about the United way and talk about roller Derby. That would be fun. But before I let you go shameless plug, please tell everybody at home, once again, who you are, what's your organization about and how they can actually get involved to help. So Kathy Steve's executive director of the United way here in Fort McMurray. And, um, our campaign is coming up September to December and we encourage everybody to give generously it's giving to our community as well as the three 65 small business circle.
Speaker 0 00:22:37 Um, $365 gets in the door and onto our web page and into our world of community, goodness and greatness. And we would love to have 365 small businesses sign up okay. As your opportunity and our opportunity to do the best we can for the people that live here. There we go. Very cool. Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. This was fun. Let's do it again. Definitely. All right. Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. Thank you very much for tuning into another show of the Sydney morning show. I've been your host Elliot Pierre, and from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for tuning in. It really does mean the world to me. So have a great day and we'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 4 00:23:19 <inaudible> talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
