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Volunteer ProfilesShereen Ali Shereen, a communications graduate with skills in print design and feature writing, With past experience as a newspaper reporter, information centre manager, and graphic designer, Shereen is originally from the Caribbean where her love for nature grew directly from the beautiful and diverse life there, especially in the rainforests, mangroves, and coral reef ecosystems of Trinidad and Tobago. Laura Yeoman
“My dad would say it started when I was five, when I first began naming the trees in our backyard,” she says. To this day, her friends and family bug her about being more concerned with the welfare of animals and wild places than that of humans. “We all have an inherent responsibility to be stewards of our environment,” she says. “I guess I’m more concerned about wildlife because we let it get to a point where animals are hopeless against the kind of abuse that we put on them.” The Winfield, BC native joined the Edmonton chapter of CPAWS shortly after she moved to the city in the fall of 2005. Over the course of a year, through volunteering at the office, working at displays, and joining other fundraising events, she has had the chance to learn invaluable lessons about the state and threat of Alberta’s wildlife. But one of the biggest lessons, to her surprise, was discovering the magnitude of concerned people throughout Alberta. “The people who care here really care, and it shows,” she says. “The hardest part is convincing people that their actions do make a difference.” Laura continues to help the cause whenever she can, and hopes to one day use her photojournalism background to effect real change. Favourite quote: “We don’t inherent the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Ancient Indian Proverb Theresa Gledhow
Theresa started her involvement with CPAWS as a volunteer for our Nahanni Forever tour last fall, and has been with us since in the capacity of Display Coordinator. Theresa is responsible for researching and booking display opportunities for CPAWS Edmonton at various events and locations throughout the city. Since Theresa has taken on the position, CPAWS Edmonton has visited Earth Day, the Waterwalker Film Festival, the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market (twice!), Mountain Equipment Coop, Sunday in the City, the U of A Students’ Union Building (twice!), and will visit several more events over the coming months. Theresa has a diploma in ecotourism and will complete her degree in Human Geography and Anthropology with a focus on environmental policy and planning this spring. She also works part-time for Mountain Equipment Coop in her spare(!) time. CPAWS would like to thank Theresa for all the time she has dedicated to our Chapter over the past year! Lenore TurnerLenore has been a volunteer with CPAWS on and off for the last four years. This fall, she is taking over the position of our Boreal Education Team Coordinator. Lenore will be working with the education team to deliver curriculum-related presentations to Edmonton-area Grade 6 classes. Lenore is currently completing her last semester of her Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English and a minor in biology. She is interested in inspiring children to appreciate the beauty and importance of the boreal forest and to incorporate conservation practices into their daily lives. As a swimming instructor, Lenore has a lot of experience working with children, and looks forward to helping CPAWS’ boreal education program grow and reach more students. We are happy to have Lenore as a dedicated CPAWS volunteer and look forward to seeing her work with the education team over the coming months! Thanks, Lenore! Jenny Semeniuk
Bonnie Ling
Catherine Lizotte
Lisa Wylie
Lisa has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and a background in e-media and design and business office skills. She currently works for Fenrich Rieger McIntyre, Chartered Accountants, and in her spare time, loves watching movies in the theatres, reading books and spending time with friends at her family’s peaceful lakeside cabin. Lisa’s favourite month is December. She especially enjoys winter mornings when the landscape is covered in a beautiful blanket of snow and the trees are covered in gorgeous hoar frost – and no bugs is a huge bonus! top of page ^. |
has volunteered with CPAWS since 2002. Working within our chapter, she has written fundraising letters, manned education booths, designed a bumper sticker, and most recently, assisted in the design of the 82-page ParksWatch report (released June 2007), which urges better funding and legislation for Alberta's parks and protected wilderness areas.
When asked to describe the definitive moment in her life that marked the beginning of what she calls her “tenacious, life-long dedication to wildlife”, Laura chuckles.
Theresa has been volunteering with CPAWS Edmonton for over a year, and has been very instrumental in helping bring CPAWS’ messages to the community. 
Jenny
has been volunteering with CPAWS Northern Alberta since September 2003. In that
time, she has been a regular and very appreciated presence in the office,
helping with filing, member correspondence, and CPAWS displays. Filing
may not sound like the most glamorous task, but Jenny’s help with
managing the office has been instrumental in keeping the Chapters administrative
costs down, thereby ensuring that we can focus our members’ financial
support on our boreal campaigns. Jenny also took on the complicated role of volunteer coordination for our "True North Wild and Free" celebration in November 2004, and did a fantastic job! Growing up just south of Athabasca, Jenny
has always felt deeply connected with nature and the forest. She began
volunteering with CPAWS to learn more about protecting wilderness in Alberta,
and grassroots campaigns. Jenny says her time with CPAWS has had a subtle
but very significant impact on her daily life. When she isn’t volunteering
at CPAWS or riding horses on her parents’ farm, she works as a massage
therapist, where she spreads the boreal message to patients curious about
her volunteer experiences with CPAWS. One of her favourite quotes is,
“In a battle between water and rock, water always wins, not because
it is the strongest, but because it perseveres.”
Bonnie
has volunteered with CPAWS since December 2003, in which time she's helped
a great deal around the office organizing our electronic photo library,
helping with the new website, working on our boreal campaign and various
other tasks. When Bonnie isn't volunteering her time with CPAWS, she enjoys
spending time drawing and learning how to play the guitar. Bonnie has been a very consistent and dedicated volunteer and brings
a lot of enthusiasm to CPAWS and can always be found wearing a smile!
Thanks Bonnie!
In 2004, the Northern Alberta Chapter initiated a Web Team, lead by our summer student Deirdre Tombs, to create a new Chapter website. Catherine played an integral role by designing the layout for the website and putting all the pieces together. The outcome was incredible - a new Chapter website with a new look and design, one with more information and content about our campaigns, and that’s easy to navigate. Catherine has been extremely dedicated to CPAWS and spent dozens of hours developing the website so it was ready to launch in October. She continues to help as our dedicated volunteer webmistress. Catherine is a design graduate from York University and Sheridan College. She moved to Edmonton in January 2004.
Preserving the natural world and the wildlife it sustains has always been important to Lisa, so in order to get more involved in that process, she joined CPAWS Northern Alberta as a volunteer in February 2005. Since then, Lisa has been active in helping to keep our website updated, creating a series of thank-you cards for our office, and developing the design for our brand-new volunteer handbook. Lisa’s great sense of initiative also led her to suggest and implement the addition of a wider variety of pictures to our website to help maintain consistency.