About Us
The Division
How we tackle the challenge
Enable
healthy people and healthy places
Recognize
the community’s strength and assets, and building upon them to promote long-term health and sustainability
Focus
on proactive measures rather than reactionary ones
Our Programs
The programs offered through the Wellness Center have been some of the earliest programs delivered by the organization. At our core, we feel that these programs and services provided to the population are of the highest importance in addressing the challenges we face on the Lower North Shore.
Currently, our activities are centred around the senior population and animation for children aged 0-5 years. Through many community consultations, it was voiced that there is a gap in programming for the adult population and after-school youth programs. Many communities feel the side effects of this often lead to unhealthy behaviours and lifestyles, and the Coasters Association shares this concern.
We have identified the importance of our role in resolving this issue. We have been to mobilize our networks to continue the conversation around this issue and establish a solution for the population. We hope that there will be Wellness Centers in each community that offers programming and animation for everyone in the community one day.
Our Team
Jenna Maurice
Manager of Senior Services
Jenna Maurice started working with the Coasters Association Inc. on June 7th, 2021, as the lead animator of the K.I.D.S summer camp. She spent the summer planning, scheduling, and monitoring the camp counsellors with great success!
On August 31st, she was promoted to Manager of Senior Services, managing all the senior animators along the coast from Kegaska to Blanc Sablon. She has a background working with seniors as she has worked in retirement homes in the past, which made her realize the needs that aren’t met for the older population. Being new to the role, she loves the team she is working with and is very excited to see what the future will bring.
Jenna is fuelled by her passion for understanding the needs of others. She considers herself eager to build on the foundations that the coasters association created and stay in tune with the older population’s needs. Her determination to turn information into action will be a great asset in her future projects.
MANAGER OF SENIOR SERVICES
Gabrielle Anderson
Manager of Early Childhood Development
Gabrielle Anderson joined our organization last June as Manager of Early Childhood Development. Before joining our organization, Gabrielle worked in various fields such as communications, tourism, and senior living.
Her professional background includes several non-profit organizations, allowing her to firsthand understand our challenges and shortcomings. During her years of study, Gabrielle studied in the field of human relations, more precisely in special care counselling. Being passionate about human development, she has added to her professional background degrees in Elderly care photography and soon in Administrative Assistant and Social Sciences.
Gabrielle is a committed member of her community by participating in fundraising and community events. She is always willing to lend a hand and loves the human touch. Having a sense of humour and passion for life, she is a ray of sunshine for people around her.
MANAGER OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
Leatrice Collier
Nutrition North Project Coordinator
Leatrice Collier joined the Coasters Association team in 2017 as the Nutrition North Education Animator for Mutton Bay and La Tabatiere and proceeded to the position of Program Coordinator in May 2021.
As the Program Coordinator, she creates and implements nutrition education activities for community groups, nonprofit organizations, retail and educational institutions. She offers support towards making healthy choices within Gros Mecatina by developing cooking and food sustainability workshops within the objectives of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Nutrition North programming.
Through establishing partnerships with local businesses, community groups, and organizations, she has helped motivate, expose, and implement healthy food options to the communities by offering practical and theory-based educational activities and creating informative print and digital content concerning nutrition, cooking and gardening.
NUTRITION NORTH PROJECT COORDINATOR
Chandra Nadeau
Wellness Animator
Chandra Nadeau was recently hired in the community of Kegaska as Wellness Animator. Chandra was raised in Kegaska but spent 13 years of her life on a military base in Petawawa, Ontario, with her military spouse. During that time, she gained various experiences and knowledge in the workplace.
The experience that has had the most impact on Chandra’s various work experiences was working overseas for two six-month contracts (in 2006 and 2009) in Afghanistan as a civilian employee of support staff to the Canadian military. That experience taught Chandra to be open-minded, tolerant, understanding, and appreciative of our lives here in Canada. She will carry the honour of working alongside the Canadian military and the many other nations deployed at Kandahar Airfield at those times.
Chandra feels she has been blessed to be able to settle back on the Lower North Shore in Kegaska, Quebec, since the summer of 2013. She enjoys being a part of a small community that is part of a vast family of Coasters from Blanc Sablon to Kegaska. It’s pretty impressive to realize that no matter if you’ve met in person or not, everyone is always ready to help one another out or lend a hand or a word of encouragement or care to each other in times of need.
Chandra has always been proud to be a Coaster and part of a team that works hard. With determination over the years to better the future of all Coasters, Chandra is happy to work with the senior population to promote health and wellness.
WELLNESS ANIMATOR
Torri Mansbridge
Wellness Animator
Torri Mansbridge has worked at the Coasters Association since June 2021 Torri’s current role within the Bonne-Esperance Wellness Centre is to organize activities for the seniors in our community, such as crafts, game nights, book club, carry out respite visits, Phone Pal check-ins and support the Bonne Esperance 50+ Club with Meals on Wheels.
Since moving to St. Paul’s River 4 years ago, Torri has had the privilege to work with seniors by doing homecare and completing the FAQPAQ Homecare Aide course. This opportunity led her to learn about many different health limitations elders may have and was an excellent fit for the Wellness Center.
In September 2021, Torri took on the role within the early childhood development file. Torri will adapt her expertise and care in working with vulnerable clientele into youth 0-5 to support their social and emotional development.
Torri is known as the “Old Soul” because of her love of embroidering, knitting, crocheting, and sewing. Her love of beachcombing and spending time outside with her two boys has given her an appreciation of what the Lower North Shore offers.
WELLNESS ANIMATOR
Makayla Griffin
Senior Animator
Makayla Griffin started working for the Coasters Association in May 2021 as the senior animator in the village of St. Augustin.
Makayla has been working with seniors in her village for the past couple of years in home care. She’s gotten to know them quite well. As the senior animator, Makayla has hosted a book club for the seniors every Tuesday evening called ‘Spilling the Tea.’ She has also been planning some intergenerational activities to bring the community closer for the coming months.
On August 30th, she was asked if she could be the animator for P.A.C.E in the municipality of St. Augustine for this year. Makayla was thrilled to take the position as she has a passion for working with children! She attended College of the North Atlantic for Early Childhood Education, so she jumped on it when the opportunity came up to be the P.A.C.E animator. P.A.C.E is going great. Makayla has many activities planned for the children this year.
Makayla is glad to be a part of such a great team at the Coasters Association as they share her passion for helping others and working as a group to help our seniors.
SENIOR ANIMATOR
Ivonne Fuentes
Senior Animator
Ivonne Fuentes V started at the Coasters Association in April 2020 as the Senior Animator. She loves helping people, always thinking about others’ needs and finding solutions. Her authentic heart is open to people and nature. To her, human values are fundamental, respect, empathy, responsibility, honesty, solidarity, love, generosity, giving, compassion, integrity, loyalty, honour, sincerity, friendship, family, peace, patience, discipline, fairness, values of my beautiful parents.
Tête-à-la-Baleine represents what Ivonne is, another opportunity in her life. Seniors are so essential and also children. She loves to be part of their lives, smile, share, does, and spend time with them, and it fills her heart with energy again and again.
In Tête-à-la-Baleine, as an Artist, Ivonne has been doing. She will do activities that involve creativity, art, talent, the development of positive emotions, the originality of their actions and the authentic joy of doing it—mixing the nature around us in the Lower North Shore with all the people around here and feeling just one.
Ivonne wore many hats in her professional and volunteer work. She has been working as a professional artist and teaching for many years. Ivonne is a professional singer, choreographer, dancer, dance teacher, and certified ”Teachers Talk Advantage” coach. She paints and does photography. She worked as Artistique Coordinator and art teacher at University Institute Tecnologico y de Estudios de Monterrey and as a Fitness Coach at Iowa State University with her program ”Athletes Evolution”. Ivonne played more than ten musicals in the theatre; she recorded 9 CDs with Mexican Entertainment Records, Musica Conceptual et Quality Records Co. in LA. California and Mexico.
She performed on TV as a singer, and she won the Latin Contest in Miami for Univision. In the USA, she recorded songs for the series Crossroads. As a coach and teacher, she has worked with different ages, from children to seniors.
Ivonne has done a lot of volunteer and philanthropic work through performance art.
She finished the Francisation in 2018 in CEGEP after arriving in this beautiful country in 2017. She participated in the Mariniers Show as a guest to sing Mexican Traditional Songs at the Palace in Granby.
Through all her work – She loves the Coasters Association!
SENIOR ANIMATOR
SENIOR ANIMATOR
Bianca James
Senior Animator
Bianca James is a new member of the Coasters Association. She is eager to get the seniors out and about and mingle. With her experience in homecare and being around the elderly, she will try her best to develop activities and events that all the seniors will enjoy doing to improve their health and make them happy. With her experience in crafts, ex: knitting, cross-stitching, quilting, drawing, wood burning and painting etc. Bianca can develop creative activities and ideas for the seniors to do.
Bianca hopes as time goes on, she will start to gain and build the trust of the seniors in the communities and get them to participate in events and activities actively. She has a lot of exciting ideas to share with them to keep our heritage and traditions alive.
SENIOR ANIMATOR
Emily Ann Joncas
Early Childhood Animator
Before working for the Coasters Association, Emily Ann Joncas attended school in Lennoxville, Quebec, where she graduated from the Social Science program at Champlain Regional College. While attending college, she took a geography course and fell in love with everything Earth-related! This led her to attend Bishop’s University, majoring in Environmental Studies & Geography with a minor in Psychology.
After completing her schooling, Emily Ann returned to the Lower North Shore to start a family. When the opportunity to apply for a position as the Pace animator arose, she jumped on it and never looked back.
Emily Ann has worked with the Coasters Association as an Early Childhood Development Animator for the last nine years in the village of Lourdes-De-Blanc-Sablon. Throughout Emily Ann’s animation career, she has seen the program change in terms of locale and how the workshops are carried out, but her steadfast dedication to the children has always remained the same. Emily Ann loves to watch the children explore, learn, and grow until they are ready to head off to school. Some of her favourite workshops include science experiments, nature walks and books!
EARLY CHILDHOOD ANIMATOR
Adeline Anderson
Early Childhood Animator
Adeline Anderson is most proud to say she is a mom of three beautiful daughters. Since her teenage years, Adeline has been active on a volunteer basis, sitting on numerous committees involving Youth Initiatives, Economic Development and Social/Leisure Initiatives.
For the last 20 years, Adeline has been the Animator of the P.A.C.E. Program in Gros Mecatina. During those years, Adeline developed a significant partnership with the Principal(s) and the staff of Mecatina School, which was a driving force to having the program exist for as many years as it has in the municipality. It was also beneficial that Adeline has been sitting on the Governing Board at Mecatina School for many years, holding positions as community rep, parent rep, to present day, Chair of the Board.
Adeline understands the importance of community involvement and being well informed of what is happening around her. She is also eager to learn. In the past year, she completed the Positive Parenting Program, updated her First Aid Course and took part in an ongoing Child and Nature Alliance of Canada training program. Due to Covid, this training could not be completed over the summer but hopefully soon.
EARLY CHILDHOOD ANIMATOR
The Region
Blanc-Sablon
Lourdes de Blanc-Sablon
Emily-Ann Joncas: Early Childhood Education Animator
Bianca James: Senior Animator
Brador
Middle Bay
St. Paul's River
Jenna Maurice: Manager of Senior Initiatives
Torri Mansbridge: Wellness Animator
Old Fort Bay
St. Augustine
Makayla Griffin: Wellness Animator
La Tabatière
Adeline Anderson: Early Childhood Education Animator
Lorelee Gallibois: Senior Animator
Mutton Bay
Leatrice Collier: Nutrition North Program Coordinator
Tête-à-la-Baleine
Ivonne Fuentes: Senior Animator
Harrington Harbour
Chevery
Gabrielle Anderson: Manager of Early Childhood Development
La Romaine
Kegaska
Chandra Nadeau: Wellness Animator
Our Structure
COMING SOON
Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm
(418) 379-2006
info@coastersassociation.com
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