Silas Young was a third-year commerce student when the COVID pandemic was at its darkest. 

The crisis spurred him to ease people’s loneliness and isolation by founding a non-profit called ASSIST (Assisting International Students Together) so that he could provide meals and a sense of community for international students on Lakehead’s Thunder Bay campus.

Pictured left:  Silas (on right) lends a hand at the 2021 Welcome Home Dinner for Lakehead international students.

Pictured right:  In December 2022, ASSIST was able to host a sit-down dinner for students at the Chanterelle restaurant. “Yutong Liu, a Master of Science in Kinesiology student at Lakehead has helped me run the dinner every year,” Silas explains. “She was essential to its success this year.”

“The main thing we do is host a welcome home holiday dinner at the end of the fall term—most international students can’t afford to go home for the holidays, and they’re missing the love and support of their families,” he says. 

Juggling volunteer work and schoolwork comes easily to Silas. It’s the reason he was given the 2022 Robert Poulin Award for outstanding citizenship—an honour presented annually to a full-time Lakehead student. He also received the 2022 Ingenuity Award from Lakehead’s business incubator, Ingenuity, which mentors Lakehead students as they take their start-up ideas from concept to launch.

“As a young person, volunteer work is the best way to get out in the community and find responsibilities that enable you learn,” says Silas, who now serves on the Ingenuity board.

Pictured left:  Silas grew up in a small town in Newfoundland, except for his kindergarten year when his family lived in Thunder Bay. Silas’s happy memories of Northwestern Ontario later convinced him to apply to Lakehead for his university studies.

Soon after arriving in Thunder Bay from Newfoundland, Silas connected with business professor Dr. Mike Dohan who introduced him to Enactus Lakehead, the local chapter of an international entrepreneurship club that uses business as a catalyst for positive social and environmental change.

“That started everything,” Silas says.

He arrived at a crucial point in the club’s history according to Alyson MacKay, the manager of Ingenuity.

“Over the years, the Enactus club had lost some of its steam, but Silas revived it thanks to his strong leadership skills.”

When he became club president in his second year, Silas increased membership numbers by recruiting students from different faculties—like nursing and the sciences—instead of exclusively from the business faculty. He also helped a club member secure Lakehead’s first Enactus Canada accelerator grant.

In addition, Silas launched a financial literacy workshop series for Indigenous students called Getting Financially Lit because, he says, “financial literacy gives you the potential to do what you want to do, and Indigenous youth face more obstacles than non-Indigenous youth.”

“Some strides are being made to improve financial literacy in Canada, but for marginalized and at-risk groups, we’re still far off,” Silas adds.

The Getting Financially Lit project placed second both regionally and nationally in the annual Enactus competition.

“We beat the University of Toronto team even though we only had 10 team members and they had 200.”

Silas’s financial literacy work hasn’t focused solely on the young. He and Chris Morrill, who is currently a Master of Science in Management student at Lakehead, started online financial literacy training for Canadians over the age of 65.

Since graduating from Lakehead in 2022, Silas has been working as a business and writing instructor at Oshki-Pimache-O-Win (Oshki)—an Indigenous institute committed to increasing postsecondary education completion rates for Nishnawbe Aski Nation people and other learners.

“Oshki is like an extended family, which is especially important for students coming from remote communities,” Silas explains.

He’s also continuing to pursue his educational goals—Silas spends evenings and weekends studying for the Immigration and Citizenship Law Graduate Diploma offered by Queen’s University.

“It’s a one-year online program that will allow me to become a licensed immigration consultant. Once I’m licensed, I plan to start an immigration consulting business.”

In the meantime, Silas enjoys volunteering for local events and participating in the St. John’s Ambulance therapy dog program with his dog Piper.

“It’s fantastic. We go to the Lakehead library and the Student Wellness Centre and wander around campus so that students can cuddle Piper.”

Mature student. Immigrant. Mother. Wife. These are all words Sandy Falcon has used to describe herself. The people around her also know her as a compassionate friend and selfless community leader.

In the middle of COVID and her graduate studies at Lakehead’s Orillia campus, Sandy started Unknown Neighbours. It’s a non-profit that helps temporary foreign workers in Canada. Her goal was to reach out to people who are often lonely and vulnerable and to assist them with accessing legal, social, and health services.

In November 2021, for instance, Unknown Neighbours made life a little easier for Mexican and Jamaican workers arriving in Simcoe County to work on Christmas tree farms. Sandy and her colleagues greeted them with welcome bags filled with personal care items and non-perishable food as well as information about community resources. In addition, they encouraged the public to donate winter coats and workwear to the labourers, many of whom were unprepared for the frigid Canadian winter.

The organization—which operates in the Simcoe, York, Dufferin, and Grey-Bruce Counties—offers foreign workers a central location where they can meet their peers and unknown neighbours and forge a sense of belonging.

Sandy herself is originally from Ecuador. Her family settled in Canada when she was just a year old, although she spent a lot of time in Ecuador throughout her childhood. By the time Sandy finished high school, however, she was living in Toronto’s low-income Jane and Finch neighbourhood.

“Postsecondary education wasn't a possibility for me,” Sandy says, “I had to get a job right away.”

She worked hard for many years, but she also yearned for a more fulfilling life so at the age of 35, the mother of four quit her job as an office administrator to earn a law clerk diploma at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario.

“I loved being at school, however, I soon realized that I didn’t want to be a law clerk,” Sandy says, “so I applied to Lakehead's criminology program.”

Then in her first year, she chose an experiential learning course in political science that allowed her to volunteer with a non-profit called Dress for Success.

“It supports women who are unemployed or reentering the workforce by providing business clothes, training, and mentoring to get them comfortable to go on interviews and start their positions,” Sandy says.

She continued to volunteer with the non-profit after the placement was over and she’s now the chair of the Barrie Chapter of Dress for Success. It was an experience that prompted Sandy to enroll in Lakehead’s Master of Social Justice program, which she completed in June 2022 with first class standing. 

Pictured at right: Sandy Falcon (BA’20/HBASc’20/MA’22) says that she hopes to maintain her connection with Lakehead University.

Given her academic achievements and community spirit, it made perfect sense that Sandy was selected to be the 2022 Voice of the Class and speak on behalf of her fellow students at Lakehead Orillia’s convocation ceremonies, but she herself was shocked.

“Hearing that I was someone to look up to really floored me. I couldn’t believe that I was chosen,” Sandy says.

She’s continuing her relationship with Lakehead and recently worked with fellow social justice grads and students to train City of Orillia staff on fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Right now, Sandy is most excited about being hired by the Red Cross—the largest humanitarian organization in the world—as the lead for a pilot project that supports older people.

“My goal is to help people,” Sandy says. “That’s what I always told anyone who asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.”

Read more inspirational news and stories in Champions of Change—Lakehead’s 2021-22 Annual Report.

Make the sentence above link to the annual report website: https://www.lakeheadu.ca/championsofchange

Even as a child, Brian Adams felt a personal obligation to do whatever he could to protect the environment from the destruction caused by humans.

Now he’s the co-founder of Salient Energy, a start-up company supporting a rapid transition to clean energy by providing a scalable alternative to lithium-ion with affordable zinc-ion batteries.

Brian’s love of nature is part of the reason he chose to study at Lakehead where he earned a Chemical Engineering Technology Diploma, an Honours Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, and a Master of Science in Chemistry. He also wanted to move far enough away from his hometown of Mitchell, Ontario, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to return every weekend, while allowing him to appreciate everything Northwestern Ontario has to offer.

“Being an outdoorsman, I loved my time in Thunder Bay, particularly ice fishing,” he says.

Brian’s training with Professor Aicheng Chen started him on his path to creating a better battery.

“I received a tremendous foundation in electrochemistry at Lakehead University,” he says.

After graduating, Brian went to the University of Waterloo to get a PhD in Chemistry, which is where he met Salient Energy’s co-founder, Ryan Brown. It was near the end of his PhD that Brian started exploring aqueous, or water-based, batteries that could be produced in an open atmosphere.

Pictured right: Rendering of a prismatic cell format battery that Salient plans to produce when they go into full-scale production. They are currently producing pouch format batteries.

“After seeing some early performance results on the zinc-ion battery, I was hooked and knew that this is one alternative battery that the world needs,” Brian says.

The pair developed a technology for zinc-ion batteries that can be recharged thousands of times and launched Salient Energy in 2017.

Since then, they’ve grown from only three employees, including themselves, to 30 full-time employees with a 24,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and a team in Oakland, California. The North American market will be their starting point and they anticipate doubling or tripling their workforce in the coming years to meet demand.

“We plan to scale up the manufacturing of zinc-ion battery cells and modules by setting up gigafactories. This is the only way for this battery technology to have a meaningful impact,” Brian says, adding that batteries are good for the environment because they are accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

Pictured left:  Brian Adams says that “the engineering diploma that Lakehead offered attracted me because I was indecisive about going to college or university when I was in high school.”

Salient batteries could be used in several different ways, but generally they are best suited for stationary energy storage applications rather than electric vehicles or consumer electronics.

One application would be as backup power in homes instead of gas generators, which will also benefit the environment by not using gas. Another application is as commercial batteries for “peak shaving,” which levels out peaks in electricity use.

“With a large battery and predictions of times of high electricity usage, companies can use the battery to cut down on the amount of electricity required from the grid,” Brian explains.

This would save businesses massive amounts of money on electricity bills and benefit grid utility companies because “peak” electricity loads put a strain on the infrastructure, often causing outages when cables and transformers are not large enough to accommodate the electric current.

Read more inspirational news and stories in Champions of Change—Lakehead’s 2021-22 Annual Report.

https://www.lakeheadu.ca/championsofchange

by Donna Faye

Today, Sharon Johnson (BA, Indigenous Learning, 2008) is known for her commitment to raising public awareness about missing and murdered Anishinaabe women in Northwestern Ontario.  

She’s no longer the shy person who was intimidated by the thought of speaking to the media after the first Full Moon Memory Walk in 2005. “I was afraid,” Sharon says. “But I agreed to do it.” 

Pictured right:  Sharon holding the Full Moon Memory Walk flag at the location on the Neebing-McIntyre Floodway where her late sister was found. (photo credit: Red Works Photography)

Since then, Sharon, from the Seine River First Nation, has organized the walk every year with help from other women in memory of her younger sister.

On February 13, 1992, Sandra Johnson’s body was discovered on the frozen Neebing-McIntyre Floodway in Thunder Bay. She was 18 years old. The Thunder Bay Police have still not found the person responsible for Sandra’s murder.

“Despite only making up 4 per cent of the Canadian population, Indigenous women and girls represent 28 per cent of homicides perpetrated against women in 2019 and are 12 times more likely to be murdered or missing than non-Indigenous women in Canada.”

-Statistics Canada

In the years following her sister’s death, Sharon didn’t want her face and name made public out of fear that the person responsible for her sister’s death was still at large.

Then in 2005, local activist Lynn Sharman invited Sharon to a meeting with some people from Lakehead University and other organizations to help plan an event to raise awareness about violence against Anishinaabe women.

They agreed to organize a memorial walk during the Grandmother Moon, the full moon in September, which also coincided with Sandra’s birthday, September 26.

“I chose to do the memorial during the full moon because that’s when women do ceremonies. It’s a healing time for women. During the full moon ceremony, we honour Grandmother Moon and ask for guidance to know what we need to do.”

Pictured left: Participants in the 2010 Full Moon Memory Walk came together to raise awareness about the high rates of violence against Indigenous women. (photo credit: Red Works Photography)

But the group stopped meeting for the summer. Then, the evening before the full moon in September, Sharon called Sharman.

They decided to go ahead with the walk. That evening Sharman made signs. Sharon called and emailed friends and relatives.

Sharon says about 35 people came out to walk the next day. “I knew most of them, and some others joined on the day.” 

“I had no idea that it was going to grow into something bigger.”

The walk became an annual event and grew to include an annual Valentine’s Day walk in February and even a memorial concert for a couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharon started studying Indigenous Learning that fall at Lakehead University. While at Lakehead, she participated in class and campus events to help raise awareness about violence against women, including being a regular guest speaker for the annual Take Back the Night walk.

Organizing events like the Full Moon Memory Walk have been important for healing, not just for Sharon but also for others who have lost loved ones to violence.

“At first, I was doing it in memory of my little sister,” she says. “I thought we need to do this for me, my family, that it would be something healing.”

“Then I realized it wasn’t just for me and my family. I started to meet many family members who had experienced the same violence who needed that help and support. Because I was touched by this violence, I knew what it was like. So, when someone told me, ‘I lost my niece,’ or, ‘I lost my mom, and this is her name,’ I couldn’t just turn my back.” 

Find information about the next Full Moon Memory Walk or Valentine’s Day Memorial Walk on Facebook.

By Brandon Walker

In 2018, Lakehead alum Sarah Kielek-Caster (BASc’13) learned that she needed a kidney transplant after a workplace injury.

Doctors diagnosed Sarah with chronic kidney disease caused by accidentally inhaling organic solvent due to a malfunctioning fume hood at Sarah’s former workplace. 

Around the same time, another Lakehead alum, Megan Perin (BASc/BEd’15), heard singer Selena Gomez discuss receiving a kidney donation from her friend, actor Francia Raisa. After doing some research, Megan decided to become an angel donor—someone who donates an organ to a stranger.

“I knew it was something I felt comfortable doing for someone, so I decided to look online to see if anyone was in need of a kidney,” Megan explains, who attended Lakehead Orillia’s concurrent education program, majoring in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on psychology and anthropology. 

That’s when Megan saw a GoFundMe post looking for a donor—written by Sarah’s sister. 

Sarah will never forget when her sister called to say they had a potential donor. A few weeks later, the transplant coordinator at the Toronto General Hospital confirmed that Megan was a match. 

“I was in complete disbelief that a total stranger was willing to save my life,” Sarah says. “I still cannot begin to articulate my feeling of gratitude for Megan and her decision to donate an organ to me.” 

After the surgery, it took Sarah four days to learn how to walk again and two days after that she was able to leave the hospital. 

Megan was glad to help. “I always feel like my best self when I help someone out in any way—so I was proud of myself for being there for her.” 

Although they were strangers before the surgery, Megan and Sarah have since become friends. 

“I couldn’t be happier to have her in my life,” Sarah says, adding that she is now healthier than she’s ever been. 

Sarah, who earned an Honours Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in interdisciplinary studies at Lakehead Orillia, is currently working as a program analyst with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. 

“Because of Megan’s decision, I can enjoy all aspects of my life and take nothing for granted.”

Megan, who’s now teaching kindergarten at the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board, was in hospital for three days after having one of her kidneys removed. Two weeks later, she felt normal—so normal that she hiked the trails at Algonquin Provincial Park.

If you’re thinking about being an angel donor like Megan, “Don’t be afraid to get the facts about organ donation,” she says. Megan did a lot of research before deciding to donate a kidney. “If it feels right to you, then do it.” 

She also informed her immediate family members of her decision. Megan encourages Alumni Ezine readers to register to donate their organs and tissues after they die. 

“My perspective is that when you’re gone, you have no use for your organs. Whereas thousands of people in Canada would be so grateful for a chance at a normal, long, and happy life. One organ can really make a big difference.”  

Today, in Ontario, there are over 1,600 people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. This is their only treatment option, and every three days someone will die because they didn’t get their transplant in time.

You can help by registering your consent for organ and tissue donation. Go to: https://beadonor.ca/

Sean Petrus has helped lift more than 10 long-term drinking water advisories across Northwestern Ontario.

As a senior project manager with Colliers Project Leaders, Sean has overseen the construction of water treatment plants in First Nations communities—many who’ve gone years without drinkable water.

“I love making positive changes in the region I grew up in,” says Sean, who is from Thunder Bay.

It’s not only water treatment plant projects that he’s skilled at managing. He’s been in charge of the construction of schools, healthcare centres, housing projects, administrative facilities, and wastewater treatment plants. 

“I make sure that the best engineers and contractors are retained to ensure that capital projects are built on time and on budget, while overseeing the entire construction process on behalf of the client,” he says.

“Most of the credit, however, goes to the First Nations who retain me to manage these projects,” Sean says. “They’re out there advocating for, and coordinating, these developments.” 

It’s a far cry from Sean’s original career ambitions. 

He studied business administration at Lakehead with plans to work in the financial sector, possibly as a stockbroker.

At the end of his third year, though, Sean decided to switch to civil engineering.

“I couldn’t see myself working in downtown Toronto. I wanted to be in Northwestern Ontario, so I decided that civil engineering would be a good fit.”

His first venture into this area was as a project manager with Frecon Construction, an Ottawa company that had contracts with the Department of National Defence at the armed forces base at Petawawa, Ontario.

After a year in Ottawa, Sean headed to the Alberta oilsands where he was a field engineer on a multi-billion-dollar construction site, where he oversaw the construction of heavy civil earthworks projects including the building of roads, tailing dams, and mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls.

“We moved a lot of dirt,” he laughs.

Since then, Sean has tried his hand at an even broader range of endeavours.

He’s been a quality control coordinator at the Detour Lake Goldmine north of Cochrane, Ontario, and managed large-scale drilling projects to support the construction of 407 toll roads in southern Ontario, rapid transit projects, and Toronto’s new east-west subway line.

“I was part of a team that designed geotechnical instrumentation to monitor the subway line to make sure that, as they tunnelled through the earth, the existing infrastructure didn’t collapse,” Sean says. “This is when I really got into project management and decided it was what I wanted to do with my life.”

While racking up engineering experiences, Sean also managed to finish his remaining Lakehead business courses and received his Bachelor of Administration degree in 2016.

Every project that he takes on comes with unique challenges.

“In 2019, I was fortunate enough to be able to work with the Shoal Lake #40 First Nation on their drinking water project,” he says. 

It required a complicated water distribution system—several kilometres of marine water lines had to be installed on the bottom of the lake. The outbreak of the COVID pandemic not long after construction began added to the difficulties, and extensive safety protocols had to be developed.

Despite this, the Shoal Lake water treatment plant won the Ontario Public Works Project of the Year award for Small Municipalities and First Nations Communities —and Sean was delighted.

“Collaborating with First Nations on meaningful projects in Northwestern Ontario is what I find most fulfilling,” he says.

by Donna Faye

Anything can be collectable, according to Cameron MacDonald (BAdm’17), the owner of The Cave Collectables in Orillia.

Books, records, cards, and plush, for example.

“It’s up to you,” says Cameron. “Anything that is valuable or sentimental to the collector. Other people may see a monetary value, but to you as a collector, that shouldn’t matter.”

Cameron’s passion started when he was a child, collecting Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

“It began as something I did with my dad. He would take us to card shows at convention centres.”

Although some cards sell for millions of dollars, Cameron says, as a kid, you don’t think about that.

Eventually, he started to dream of opening a collectables store one day.

Born in Brampton, Cameron spent his teenage years at Wasaga Beach, which he considers home. After high school, he went to George Brown College in Toronto for Pre-Business and Advanced Financial Planning.

After graduation, he transferred to Lakehead’s Orillia campus, allowing him to be a little closer to home and family.

“It’s a great school,” Cameron says. “As a transfer student, I was only there a year and a half, but that time was meaningful, and I made lifelong friends.”

Lakehead built on his pre-business studies and had a significant influence on his next career steps and would allow him to land the kind of fulfilling work he was looking for.

“The people and atmosphere at Lakehead drove me to not give up on pursuing the position of financial advisor as a career option.”

One week before convocation, Cameron interviewed for a financial advisor position at Scotiabank, a five-minute drive from Lakehead. They offered him the job on one condition – that he finish his degree. He graduated in the spring of 2017 and started working in May. He was there for four and a half years and was promoted to senior financial advisor.

But during his university studies and career in banking, Cameron never lost sight of his childhood dream.

“I always kept the big picture in mind,” he says. “I started with savings I could put together, and now it’s just mind-blowing when I look at what we’ve accomplished.” The store opened at its downtown Orillia location in October 2021 to both in-person and online shopping.

The Cave has something to offer customers of all ages looking for either vintage or modern collectables, including NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the latest arrival on the collectables scene.

While 70 per cent of their customers are adult collectors, they do see younger customers as well.

“A lot of kids come in. We teach them about grading and starting a collection. And we give them branded merchandise like stickers.” 

Cameron says his hope for other students like him is to see that anything is possible. “If you’re passionate about something, don’t give up.”

To learn more visit thecavecollectables.com.

Katie Lemieux has been drawing ever since she was old enough to hold a Crayola. 

Today, the Thunder Bay artist is an internationally recognized sculptor who’s participated in group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Europe, and South Korea.

“When I was a kid, I was attracted to sculpture after seeing marble angels beside gravestones,” Katie says. “They seemed so sad and mysterious – I wanted to know why they were always in cemeteries.” 

After high school, she enrolled in Lakehead’s fine arts program where she was influenced by the divergent styles of 19th-century American sculptor Edward V. Valentine and 20th-century Swiss surrealist sculptor Alberto Giacometti.

“Their work made me realize that I could combine traditional and contemporary strands of art and create my own narrative,” she says.

Kasia Piech, a Lakehead ceramics instructor, also spurred Katie’s artistic development. It was through Piech that Katie was able to travel to China’s celebrated Jingdhezhen Facility to complete a six-week artistic residency in 2015.

“It was the first time I’d been to such a vastly different culture and one that was so storied and skilled in ceramics,” Katie says. “It made me want to participate in this international conversation.”

Later, at a workshop in Croatia arranged by Piech, Katie met the head of the ceramics department at the University of Wisconsin’s Peck School of the Arts. 

At his encouragement, Katie completed a Master of Fine Arts at Peck before returning to Thunder Bay in 2019. She’s now fully embraced the life of an artist and is buoyed by the critical success her work is enjoying. 

One of her main sources of inspiration comes from her second job as personal support worker – a career she chose because of her fascination with paraverbal communication, as well as to supplement her income.

Paraverbal communication is a term used to describe ways of communicating without words.

“There’s not as much awareness of non-verbal communication as there should be,” Katie says. “People who are deaf, hearing impaired, or autistic express themselves using body language and facial expressions.” 

The theme of paraverbal communication runs through her current solo exhibition at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery called Ending Up.

“It’s a two-part show that explores non-verbal communication by arranging my sculptures in certain ways to express the idea of conversation without words.”

The exhibition features headless figures that call to mind both ancient Greek statuary and Giacometti’s elongated and unsettling sculptures. Her work is described by the Art Gallery as “multi-gendered and androgynous clay subjects that are vehicles for a complicated range of human expression.”

“I wanted to present something that wasn’t particularly pretty or aesthetic,” Katie says, “because confronting things that are challenging can open up potential.”

The show is also described “a voyeuristic look into the studio of a sculptor” where small finger-like objects and figurines jostle each other on wooden shelves.

“If you could go back in time to the studios of artists like Giacometti and Michelangelo, you’d see crowded dusty spaces,” Katie says. “I wanted to give viewers the chance to see behind the curtain.”

She has been overwhelmed by the reaction to her work.

“The support that Thunder Bay has shown for this exhibition has been amazing,” Katie says. “And after two years of quiet from the pandemic, it’s great to see people talking again.”

Ending Up will be on display at the Thunder Bay art gallery until June 19, 2022.

A love of Russian literature influenced Tamer Ibrahim’s (MA'10) life in an unexpected way.

Tamer, who has a BA in English from York University and an MA in English from Lakehead, was especially fascinated by writer Leo Tolstoy’s explorations of the privileged world of the Russian aristocracy and the light he shed on the plight of the country’s peasant farmers, who barely eked out a living.

“I was attracted to literature’s ability to interpret sociological environments – like various social classes,” Tamer (MA’10) says. “It relates to what I do today.”

He joined the Laidlaw Foundation seven years ago – a Canadian grant-maker that aspires to create a society where all youth have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. 

“I work with a group of champions interested in the well-being of young people,” Tamer says. “When the systems designed to support them aren’t working, they ask tough questions and then work to change them.”

Since 2019, Laidlaw has been helping youth negatively affected by the justice, education, and child-welfare systems become healthy and engaged citizens. Often, these young people are struggling with racial, economic, and social barriers.

Tamer says, for example, there’s a lack of comprehensive data and knowledge-sharing between organizations that operate in the child welfare sector. 

“At one of our roundtable discussions, experts told us that young people would deliberately come into conflict with the law to escape group homes with toxic, or even dangerous, living environments. That needs to change.” 

Tamer’s compassion for youth who’ve had the deck stacked against has defined his career.

“Fresh out of Lakehead I was hired by UforChange – a grassroots youth-led organization in the Toronto area that offered fashion, film, and photography workshops to newcomer youth,” he says. As the Operations & Community Development Manager, Tamer helped developed UforChange’s fundraising strategy and prepared grants. “I also managed special projects with incredible partners like Google Canada, Artscape, and the Inspirit Foundation.”  

Currently, Tamer is Laidlaw’s Youth Collective Impact Manager and has shifted his focus from assisting individual young people to tackling systemic barriers faced by youth across Ontario. The project is a partnership between the Laidlaw Foundation, the McConnell Family Foundation’s Innoweave initiative, and the Government of Ontario.  

“We want to decrease youth homelessness and increase employment and graduation rates,” he says.

How exactly does the Laidlaw do this?

They team up with community groups and organizations who’ve identified a problem, such as high drop-out rates among people of colour in a certain city or region in Ontario. 

Laidlaw then works with this local coalition made up of people with lived experience and members of school boards, mental health centres, community centres, and anti-racism groups to design an integrated strategy to improve the graduation rate. Laidlaw also supports these coalitions through coaching, workshops, and funding.  

In his spare time, Tamer is the Board Chair of the For Youth Initiative, a non-profit organization that enables Black, racialized, and newcomer youth to navigate systemic barriers, plan for the future, and access the resources and mentorship they need to thrive. 

It’s another way that Tamer makes sure that he is always there for young people who need someone in their corner.

Singer, actor, dancer…destroyer of invasive weeds? 

Julia Johnston is not a typical university student, but that’s what makes her such a dynamic member of the Lakehead Orillia campus.

“My entire family sang in church and community choirs,” she says. “My dad – who we lost to cancer in 2014 – and my mom taught us that music and the arts are powerful things.”

Julia took their lessons to heart. She attended the Randolph College for the Performing Arts, a Toronto Theatre School, and then founded two performing arts schools of her own.  

“For the past 12 years, I’ve been offering vocal and drama training to all ages, including adults,” she says. “It’s my joy and my passion.”

Lately, though, Julia hasn’t been content with being a triple threat in the theatre world. 

In 2019, she took an environmental management course at the University of Toronto. The experience prompted her to enrol in the Lakehead-Georgian Partnership's environmental sustainability degree-diploma program.

“I love that I’m learning, and I love what I’m learning,” Julia says of her studies.

It may seem like a big leap from the performing arts to the sciences, but according to Julia, “I’ve been a tree hugger and avid environmentalist all my life.”

“I just had to get up my courage,” she adds. “I’m a mature student and I hadn’t been to school in 15 years.”

In the summer of 2021, at the end of her first year, Julia saw an opportunity to apply her newly acquired fieldwork techniques after spotting a group of invasive plants called Phragmites australis in Orillia’s Tudhope Park. 

Phragmites australis, also called European common weed, is one of the biggest threats to North American wetlands and waterways.

It arrived in Canada from Eurasia in the 1930s – probably from ballast water in ships travelling down the St Lawrence seaway. Now, this weed is spreading rapidly and endangering plants and wildlife.

Phragmites australis, which grows to nearly 20 feet tall, wreaks havoc by suffocating the ground so that other vegetation can’t grow and by sucking up water and creating islands in fragile wetland areas. Besides making it inhospitable for other plants, this weed also drives away native insects, birds, and reptiles. 

“Phragmites australis doesn’t play friendly,” Julia says. 

She knew that she had to take action and slow its spread in Simcoe County.

Removing the weed from Tudhope Park, however, was a more complicated endeavour than she anticipated. She had to secure permission from the city, find volunteers, and pay for proper equipment to remove the plants.

Undeterred, Julia launched a successful GoFundMe campaign that raised money to support the weed removal efforts, including purchasing necessary supplies like safety boots. 

When Julia and her volunteers finished weeding Tudhope Park, they moved their activities to city property used to store road sand and cleared a 500-600 metre section of Phragmites australis that had popped up. 

All of this hands-on work is great preparation for what Julia wants to do when she graduates.

“I have a deep desire to work for the Nature Conservancy of Canada, specifically in invasive species ecology with a focus on education, because I have a special connection with kids.”