MONTREAL, April 24, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - Centraide of Greater Montreal awarded 14 Solidaires yesterday evening at its Distinctions recognition event to honour companies and community agencies that distinguished themselves through their social involvement. These awards recognize remarkable contributions by organizations and their employees to the success of the most recent Centraide campaign. They also celebrate outstanding initiatives by community agency practitioners and volunteers to fight poverty and social exclusion.
The Solidaires for best Centraide campaigns, in terms of actions and results, were awarded to the following organizations:
- Desjardins Group (Solidaires Overall Support)
- BMO Financial Group (Solidaires Employee Campaign – 1,000 plus employees)
- KPMG (Solidaires Employee Campaign – 250 to 999 employees)
- The Guarantee Company of North America (Solidaires Employee Campaign – 249 employees or less)
- HEC Montréal (Solidaires Employee Campaign – Public Sector)
- Sandoz Canada (Solidaires Employee Campaign – First Campaign)
- METRO (Solidaires Leadership Campaign – 1,000 plus employees)
- PwC (Solidaires Leadership Campaign – 999 employees or less)
- Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and Canadian Office and Professional Employee Union (COPE), Gaz Métro (Solidaires Trade Union Support)
- "Coup de coeur" special jury awards were also presented to Pratt & Whitney Canada, in the category Overall Support, and to Xerox Canada, in the category Leadership Campaign – 999 employees or less.
The winners of the five Solidaires to community agencies, volunteers and social practitioners are:
- Centre de femmes du Haut-Richelieu (Solidaires Empowerment). This agency mobilizes women in the Haut-Richelieu RCM, and encourages them to find solutions themselves to the food security issues in this suburban and rural area. By establishing projects to increase their economic and food autonomy, the women ensure their personal well-being and that of their families and community.
- Louis-André Bellemare, Jean-Pierre Phaneuf, Jean-Guy Marsan and Huguette Piché (Solidaires Citizen Involvement). These four volunteers have more than 66 years of experience between them promoting school perseverance at L'Ancre des Jeunes, an agency in Verdun that offers an alternative to the traditional school. They provide ongoing and individualized support to young people in their academic, social and personal lives.
- Manon Rousseau, founder and Executive Director of the Centre communautaire Val-Martin (Solidaires Leadership), a community centre with the mission of improving the quality of life for youth and families in Chomedey. A builder, Manon Rousseau managed to communicate and realize her vision of creating a true sense of community and belonging, by relying on mutual-aid, the potential of individuals, citizen involvement and community mobilization.
- "One tomato at a time" project (Solidaires Mobilization), a collective community gardening project carried out by several partners who came together to promote citizens' food security and empowerment: Dawson Community Centre, SouthWest United Church and Mission, Riverview Elementary School and the Riverview Community Learning Centre.
- Tássia Camões, a volunteer at Santropol Roulant (Solidaires Mobilization), who has dedicated hundreds of hours to building a strong intergenerational community. By participating in a multitude of activities (meals-on-wheels, production of an awareness video on the realities of frail older people, pilot project for an intergenerational urban garden, the urban fruit harvest collective Les Fruits Défendus), she helped many seniors to break out of their isolation.
Finally, the Michèle Thibodeau-DeGuire Award was presented to James C. Cherry, who for the past 17 years has been involved on various volunteer committees at Centraide, including the board of directors, which he chaired from 2012 to 2014.
Centraide of Greater Montreal is an independent organization managed by a board of directors that is representative of the community. It serves the Island of Montreal, Laval and communities on the South Shore, supporting over 360 community agencies and projects that help one person in seven in Greater Montreal. About 57,000 volunteers are involved in the agencies it supports, and another 22,000 work on its annual campaign. Centraide is supported by some 1,600 private and public corporations and organizations as well as by large trade unions.
SOURCE Centraide of Greater Montreal
Annick Gagnon, Centraide of Greater Montreal, 514 288-1261, ext. 242, [email protected], www.centraide-mtl.org, twitter.com/centraidemtl, facebook.com/centraide.du.grand.montreal
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