Champion Stories

Your Champion Stories

Keisa Campbell United Way Greater Toronto Culture Champion Award Recipient

Keisa is recognized for her remarkable leadership in bringing an equity lens and focus to community investment, granting and evaluation processes. Her commitment to collaboration and passion for anti-racism work led to the development of our Community Investment Equity and Reconciliation Action Plan and formation of the Equity and Reconciliation Working Group. Keisa is a champion for equity, a model for authenticity and integrity, a trusted partner with all stakeholders, a mentor to colleagues, and an inspiration in many ways. Keisa demonstrates a strong desire to learn and grow. She dove deep into a comprehensive Community Investment Equity Audit, engaged in a literature review of best funder practices internationally, and contributed to a cross organizational team that secured funds focused on advancing equity in our community investments. Keisa presents hard, truth-telling data on long-standing inequities and systemic racism embedded within non-profit funding, and her notable achievements will lay the foundation for how we move forward.

Reta Red Sky Hamlin, Supervisor Native Child and Family Centre

Reta Red Sky Hamlin on Manitouland Island, close to her reserve Aundeck Omni Kaning. “Going home to our Ancestral land at least once a year helps keep us grounded and connected in mind, body, and spirit.”

As a deeply committed Supervisor at the NEW Mount Dennis Native Child and Family Centre she credits her inspiration to serve to role modeling from her parents. Her mother was a supervisor at the First Native Child Care Centre and as a toddler she spent 12 hours a day there with her mother absorbing all that her mother did to ensure excellence in the care. Phrases such as “You can do this” and “This too shall pass”-from her mother still resonate.