Faces of Community tells the story of just some of the 20,000+ volunteers in Calgary who donate their time and passion to making their communities better. They are volunteers who see the needs of their communities and proactively get involved. They are everyday people doing the extraordinary. Nominated by their peers, the annual Faces of Community come from community organizations across the city. This year, the Federation recognized 21 outstanding individuals who have made a remarkable difference in Calgary communities.
BRCA Board member Sarah MacDonald was amongst the honorees recognized in 2023 at a special event in May.
Sarah is a remarkable volunteer; her never-ending energy and tireless contributions to our community over the past decade are truly astounding, all while juggling a very busy family and personal life. She is a natural born leader who has taken on four Board portfolios (membership, programs, volunteers, and Farmers’ Market). She is a humble, yet strong and proactive leader who is respectful and intentionally reaches out to engage as many as possible. Her lively personality, charismatic smile, and pragmatic approach to tasks make her exceptionally easy to work with. Her projects have been successful due to her exceptional organizational and time management skills, her persistence, and her ability to recruit others, create a team, and see things to completion.
Sarah’s volunteer work is consistently of a high quality and done out of sincerity and for the right reasons: to benefit the community. She never hesitates to help; she is always ready and willing to roll up her sleeves and pitch in, no matter how simple or complex the task. Sarah is not afraid to ask the tough questions and uses creative thinking to bring progressive perspectives and solutions to community projects.
Sarah is a Bridgeland-Riverside Farmers’ Market founder and committee member of more than a decade and has provided strong leadership throughout. In particular, she has been instrumental in envisioning and implementing special community engagement events such as the pub night, fall harvest, and winter markets. During the pandemic, her “out of the box” thinking resulted in switching the face-to-face market into a new adaptation, the monthly “Farmers’ Market Box.” This popular solution upheld the pandemic restrictions but also managed to keep the vendors and community engaged and involved.
Sarah recently obtained the Horizon Grant for Seniors to fund an array of meaningful projects. She sought out community engagement by chatting with local seniors to understand what they want and need and how she could help facilitate that, resulting in more programming and higher participation.
Sarah has had a huge influence on the success of our community through her many small and diverse impactful contributions: spearheading best practices for BRCA human resources, securing seniors and student grants to ensure sustainable programming, and jumping right in to pick up various community events to see them to completion (Field Day, Community Cleanup, and Arctic Adventure).
After the fire at the community hall in November 2022, Sarah stepped in immediately to support the Board, the community, and our general manager with troubleshooting and pursuing renovation logistics, and navigating the complexities of dealing with numerous stakeholders.
Her colleagues on the BRCA Board view her as someone who brings fresh perspectives, has a willingness to lead with high integrity, and who always completes a 360 degree look to consider issues from all angles. Congratulations, Sarah, on this very well-deserved recognition and thank you for all you do for our community.
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