Leah Shaw: Heartland Champion

Leah Shaw has seen firsthand the impact volunteers have on local communities when they join forces through United Way.

The Heartland Challenge brings together organizations in the industrial Heartland Region to help their employees connect more personally with the local agencies supported through their United Way workplace campaigns.

The Heartland Challenge aims to raise awareness and provide education about the diverse range of support services available in the region. The committee actively engages workplace teams and cultivates strong relationships with these local non-profit organizations by offering them the essential funding, resources, and volunteer hours they require to complete a transformation project. Together, they make a significant impact and ensure that our community members receive the support they deserve.

“Every year we’ve had four or five incredible proposals from community organizations, and it’s often really hard to choose one,” says Leah, who has been on the committee since its inception 11 years ago, when companies in the Industrial Heartland first pooled funding to make a greater impact in the surrounding community.

For seven years now, Leah has chaired this committee of United Way volunteers, made up of participating company representatives.

Once the committee determines a project for the year, they pitch the project and budget to company executives. Once approved, the project management and volunteer outreach begins.

Every project is a little different.

For instance, a few years ago they built community gardens for the Fort Saskatchewan food bank. This included creating an outdoor garden space that consisted of a gardening space on the grounds, building a greenhouse, 6 garden boxes, multiple fence planters, and reconfiguring a water collection system utilizing the roof drainage to water those plants.

“The project allowed the food bank to provide people in the community with fresh produce every year and have a free, sustainable source of water,” says Leah.

Another year, they turned a stark intake room in a domestic violence women’s shelter into a beautiful welcoming space. They added furniture, painted a mural, painted hallways, and updated the beds to something more comfortable where children and their parent could heal and rehabilitate.

“We pick projects that have lasting effect,” says Leah. “Every year I say, ‘That project was my favourite,’ but then the next year comes around…” she laughs. “This year’s project was definitely my favourite.”

This year, they chose to update the children’s play area of BriarPatch Family Life Education Centre, which is a vital community hub helping families build resilience by offering childcare services, grief counselling, and other parenting supports.

“It was a bare, fenced-in area in a parking lot when we started,” Leah says as she clicks through the before and after pictures.

In the first, there is a fenced rectangle area of concrete. In the second, the space is transformed. They built several decks to create separate play areas. There is a sensory wall and painted paths on the pavement. A volunteer has carefully cut out fun shapes from plywood while another painted them, added an interactive chalk board surface, and nailed them to the wall. They built playhouses, a gazebo, benches, flower boxes, a garden bed and kid-sized basketball nets.

Over three days, volunteers with various skills came out to build the play space. “We had plans, but when we got there, we got really creative. It was fun to see everyone in the moment get imaginative and playful to create the amazing space it turned out to be.”

This year’s project had the biggest budget yet. Leah’s pitch to company executives resulted in thirteen companies signing on to donate $2,000 each.

“Being out in the community and taking on these projects that truly make a difference, and working alongside passionate people is really what drives me,” Leah says, reflecting on why she’s volunteered.

“I’ve built lasting friendships, learned a ton of new skills, and been given the opportunity to lead in ways I never imagined.”

In part, her work is inspired by how keen United Way is to help supporters like Leah see the impact of their donations in the community.

“Over the years, I’ve seen how the programs we support don’t just change the lives in the moment for people. They’re really creating lasting, meaningful impacts.”

Through Leah’s leadership and her collaboration with many co-chairs and committee members over the years, thousands of dollars have been raised and eleven incredible projects built to serve the community. It’s because of leaders like Leah that our work is possible.