Rotary Club of Edmonton Whyte Avenue

Michelle Hordal

From her experiences as an adapted physical education instructor, Michelle Hordal developed an enduring passion for supporting individuals and families with special needs.  She stepped forward with expertise and insight to create AdaptAbilities, incorporated in 2004. Today, sixteen years later she serves ever more people with special needs, allowing them to grow, succeed, and move through society with dignity and their unique fit.  In many instances, families and support groups need respite from care-giving duties while, understandably, insisting on physical and emotional

safety for high-needs family members.  Michelle designed professional and nurturing spaces to support and engage individuals, thereby allowing caregivers a respite to focus on their own needs. Helping care-givers ultimately helps the cared-for. This charity now employs over 215 staff and more during summer months. Michelle’s most recent addition is Orange Hub Centre where community groups and families can program events in their gross motor development room. 

Rotary Club of Sherwood Park

Zane Nykiforuk

Imagine a full-service station in a parking lot designed to serve the physical, emotional and spiritual requirements of people in need. Anyone in need.  Zane Nykiforuk is a worker at the core of this outreach called WE CARE.  This is a faith-based group supported by the Alliance Church but reaching far beyond. 

The community service of WE CARE carries messages of hope combined with a steady focus on the real-world physical and nutritional needs of those with little.  Bagged lunches, bread, coffee, baking, clothing are on offer without charge. Counselling and listening are common.  Those with much give generously to those with little. The interaction between community members is at the heart of WE CARE and the benefits accrue to both those providing and those receiving goods along with a real sense of involvement.  This program has not missed a single Sunday of helping others in 17 years, regardless of Edmonton weather.  Zane and WE CARE have touched thousands of lives in positive ways such as Christmas dinner celebrations, two food drives per year, backpack programs and food donation pick ups from local grocers.

Rotary Club of Nisku-Leduc

Lynda Chapelsky

Lynda seems born to a life of giving to others; a life filled with modesty, integrity, honesty and sharing.  She grew up in rural Alberta (Myrnam village) surrounded by church activities, Elks, Royal Purple and the joys of volunteerism.  Notably, her grandmother’s example of sewing hospital pillows with love and charity inspired her.  This was followed by a move to Leduc where volunteerism extended to Kinsman and Kinette involvement, hockey and soccer volunteering and cultural support of Zirka Ukranian Dancers.

Later, with her children successfully raised, Lynda could really channel her inner volunteer!  Volunteer board membership followed on the Black Gold Health Foundation (6 years) where she worked diligently on the fundraising campaign to bring a CT scanner to the Leduc Hospital. She then turned to the Board of the Leduc Community Hospital Foundation (6 years), and Board memberships in the Leduc Arts and Culture Foundation and the Board of the Leduc Arts Foundry.  After retirement, Lynda leapt into volunteer board positions on the Black Gold Quilt Patch Guild, the Edmonton Rug Hooking Guild, and the Focus on Fibre Arts Association.

Rotary Club of Fort Saskatchewan

Lana Santana

Lana arrived in Canada from Trinidad Tobago and immediately sought a volunteer position at her children’s school.  From there, she formed the Fort Saskatchewan Multicultural Association to welcome and integrate newcomers into the community; She worked with Boys and Girls Clubs, Girl Guides, Daycare Centers, Families First, Public Library, The Fort Saskatchewan Volunteer Centre, CALLS, RCMP, Restoration Practice, Women in Business, Chamber of Commerce, and her church.

Closer inspection shows the reach and impact she has had when one realizes that over 10,000 children have benefitted from the Multicultural programming.  As the tele-marketers say, “But wait! There is more!”  lana introduced Black History Month to the Fort, and started an English Second Language (ESL) homework club for newly arriving children.  She was a driving force behind Alberta Cultural Day in Fort Saskatchewan, Indigenous Cree language program and is active in the annual Potluck fundraiser to support the Multicultural Choir. 

Rotary Club of Edmonton Downtown

Dr. Ross Wein

A University of Alberta Professor, author and researcher, in 1998, Ross and Eleanor Wein’s son Danny suffered a serious motor accident in South America and emerged with grave physical impairments. Danny, however, retained an active and outdoor-oriented mind.  Ross immediately retired and focused his energies on Danny and the many others coping with similar circumstances. 

Ross has worked tirelessly to establish the not-for-profit Alberta Abilities Lodges Society (AALS) and to create a fully accessible outdoor lodge suitable for the 400,000 Albertans living with physical or cognitive impairment.  In 2017 the AALS purchased 195 hectares of a defunct rural prison site in the rolling aspen parklands east of Leduc. The Coyote Lake Lodge was born!  Moose, deer, coyotes and ospreys are common visitors.  The lodge is a full-access, full-service, all-season set of lodging for up to 30 guests with both private and common areas, rooms overlooking a lake and all less than an hour’s drive from Edmonton Centre. 

Rotary Club of Edmonton Riverview

Jeanette Boman

When asked to describe herself, this former nurse, political campaigner, community organizer simply says “I think of myself as the connective tissue.”  From years spent in health care, Jeanette adapted her skills as a planner, coordinator, and connector, bringing people and their skills together making the Belgravia Community League a vibrant body for all ages and stages of life in the neighbourhood.  Jeanette’s 4-year nursing degree at the university of Alberta showed her the difficulties of new nurses “learning the ropes” in trying to advocate for patients welfare.  She had taught on this topic at Grant McEwan while earning

her MSc., and continued working in health promotion to help people take control of their health care decisions.  She later expanded her reach by providing these tools to others across the northwest from Yellowknife to Red Deer in a teach-the-teacher approach to help nurses advance to excellence.

Jeanette worked tirelessly in her Belgravia Community League to address traffic shortcutting, and helped lead the charge to first re-write the Community League Charter (including a charter correction to the 1950 text that “Women be recognized as persons”) then, poured her energies into funding and building a new high-efficiency Community Hall. With Jeanette as Community League President, they built it in 2015!  Bring on the yoga, fitness classes, soapstone carving, arts, crafts, classes, celebrations morning coffee klatch and joyous clatter of hockey sticks and skates from the attached rink. 

Rotary Club of Edmonton Northeast

Cornel Rusnak

Cornel may not have known where taking on the duties of volunteer manager of a Beverly hockey team in 1982 would lead him.  The seeds of volunteerism start to grow as not only was Cornel a much-loved community member, he was really good at it.  His positive attitude, appreciation of young people, and approachable manner made him a natural for moving up to the Hockey Director position where he hosted up to a 32-team hockey tournament for a dozen years.  In a 30-year run he was frequently a president of VP of several teams, something he still assists today.  For fun, Cornel volunteered for Beverly’s long running Variety Show as well.

After retiring from 34 years as Edmonton City, ultimately as Director of Cash Management, the Beverly Business Association tapped him to lead the renovation of Edmonton’s 118^th Avenue.  This transformative community change took the area from culture-worne to a bright boutique environment with a culturally rich and inviting ambiance of shopping and recreation.  Community pride followed involving Classic Car Cruises, Pancake Breakfasts, and a Farmers Market.  His communication through the Community News newspaper bridged and linked the residents and business community.

The Beverly Farmer’s Market with vendors, live music and healthy produce was a clear point of pride for Cornell and he held to the manager role of the market even after retiring from the Business Association in 2016.   Cornel and his staff also undertook the fundraising, repair and celebration of Western Canada’s oldest memorial cenotaph as a memorial to our fallen soldiers.

Rotary Club of Edmonton Glenora

Shannon Stewart

When we think of homelessness, lack of appropriate clothing in Alberta winters, or insufficient access to toys, and books, we rarely think of cooing, helpless babies, yet they too may have to spend their first year of life in vital deprivation during the most formative period of their lifetime.   

Shannon Stewart serves as the president of the charitable organization Basically Babies, and she recognized early on that not every parent can provide appropriately for their newborn’s clothing needs.  It was physicians that first identified that many needy families had nowhere to turn for the crucial basics of life-enriching materials of a baby’s first year of life. Into this social gap, Basically Babies was formed in 1994 to meet this very specific but very important need for donations.  The organization was provides more than 450 family kits filled with clean baby clothing such as snowsuits, summer hats, shoes, towels, books, blankets and toys each year.

Rotary Club of Edmonton Sunrise

Trish Bowman

For fourteen years Trish has been paving the way for people with disabilities to achieve meaningful and fulfilling lives; lives that would have been severely lacking without such a champion.  This all builds on the work that Trish began in her teens as a student of disability studies at Grant McEwan University.  Her initiative and contributions in the field eventually led to her promotion to a position where she could extend her passion more broadly; Trish is the relatively new CEO of Inclusion Alberta. 

More specifically, Trish has focussed on something called “Inclusivity Post-secondary Initiative”.  In this work she helps those with developmental disabilities thread their way through the myriad channels, of paperwork, qualifications, tests, government support and meetings to be admitted to higher education.  In fact, 80% of those disabled Albertans who gain technical and university training also gain paid employment after such training.  Their circumstances, far from a public liability, allows them the dignity of becoming productive members of Alberta’s society.

Rotary Club of Edmonton West

Diane Kyle-Buchanan

Diane and her late husband Gordon dreamed of a wellness centre for Parkinson’s disease. In  October of 2015, the Buchanan Centre for Parkinson’s was established in Edmonton as a leading example of a facility dedicated to providing  information and support to individuals living with Parkinson’s, their caregivers and family members.

The foundation focuses on giving back to the community and millions of dollars have been donated through the Buchanan Foundation to over thirty different organizations.

Diane has shown her generosity of spirit in many other ways as well through public companies, hospital boards at the Royal Alexander and the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation, private companies and national and international projects. 

Diane’s local contributions include the Independent Task Force to end Homelessness; the Lois Hole Hospital Women’s Society; Director of the Citadel theatre; Founder of the Humane Society’s Haute Dawg Gala; a member of the Kids in the Hall fundraiser providing outreach support for youth facing poverty and addiction; and the Christmakah (Christmas and Hanukah) Gala event in support of women who are in emergency shelters.