September 12, 2025
This year, our United Way introduced the Community Leader Award to recognize non-profit leaders who strengthen the social sector and create lasting change in their communities.
Our first recipient is Liz O’Neill, a longtime champion of our United Way and a role model to our region’s entire social sector.
“When I was first approached about the recognition, I thought they were talking about somebody else, because there are so many amazing people in the sector and it’s truly been a team effort. It was very emotional,” Liz shares.
Collaboration is in her DNA, as the eldest daughter in a family of 10 children. She remembers when she started at Big Sisters Big Brothers, support 26 kids on a budget of $36,000 and one-and-a-half staff members.
“Every time I wanted to get something done, I needed to reach out for help,” she recalls. “It taught me that when you ask for help, 99% of the people will step up. It really built confidence and courage.”
Throughout her 45-year career as the Executive Director of BGC Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton & Area, Liz carried that firm belief that partnership is the only way to get the work done.
“Edmonton is a roll-up-the-sleeves, let’s-get-the-job-done kind of place. Most people aren’t looking for credit. We just want to help each other,” she describes.
United Way is more than a funder of BGCBigs — we’re connectors focused on amplifying and investing in the work front-line agencies do in our community that helps everyone thrive.
“I asked United Way if our organization could recruit volunteers from their corporate community, and they asked, ‘How do we help you tell your story, and why don’t you come tell it with us?’ The initiative increased the number of our volunteers by hundreds, while United Way’s supporters appreciated being able to see how the money touched kids.
Often the first to share her time, resources, and skills with others, Liz has touched many lives through her work at BGCBigs, and in collaboration with United Way initiatives like All in for Youth.
“Our involvement was about being part of something bigger than we were. And it felt like a family: during good and bad times! Our United Way believed that by helping each other, it was good for all. I’ve always appreciated that.”
Going forward, this recognition will be named The Liz O’Neill Community Leader Award, in honour of its first recipient.
As a volunteer with the Heartland Challenge for more than a decade, Leah Shaw has seen first hand the impact volunteers have on local communities when they join forces through United Way.
For fifty years, Rob and Beth Reynolds have been proud United Way donors. Their spirit of giving creates meaningful change across generations, just as generations before have impacted them.
