An Olympic athlete, a career educator, cancer survivors, community visionaries and leaders in the community were celebrated at the Amazing Airdrie Women Awards luncheon April 20 at Peppercorns Restaurant.
Event organizer Sherry Shaw-Froggatt presented the awards banquet celebrating the power of women in the community.
“The event went even better than I imagined,” said Shaw-Froggatt.
“There are so many amazing women in this city it was an honour to celebrate many of them today. There was laughter, there were tears, there was a strong sense of community and an overwhelming sense of gratitude among the attendees. I was overwhelmed by the response.”
Three awards were presented; Jan Morrison received the Amazing Compassion Award, Chelsey Dawes received the Amazing Strength Award and Karen MacDonald was recognized with the Amazing Leadership Award. The winners each received one-of-a-kind hand crafted clayworks by Airdrie area artist Tracy Lee Shannon.
“It was such an honour to be nominated in the same category as all these other amazing woman but to be recognized for the leadership award I was flabbergasted and overcome with emotion... it truly is an honour,” said MacDonald.
A sold-out crowd enjoyed a champagne reception, gourmet lunch and a riveting and inspiring speech by guest speaker Sandi Richard, Food Network TV host and best-selling author.
“I think that every women in that room deserved an award, I can just imagine how hard it must have been to only select three,” said Dawes said.
“Personally, I was very surprised that I was recognized for the category of strength because of all of the strong, determined and powerful women that were also finalists. I felt honoured just to be nominated with them, let alone to actually be recognized.”
Twelve women were honoured as finalists from more than 30 nominated throughout the city this past winter. The 12 finalists were Dawes, Morrison, MacDonald, Leah Moore, Kaleigh Kuchinski, Nancy McPhee, Lori McRitchie, Heloise Lorimer (in memoriam), Tracy Work, Nancy McAdams, Mellisa Hollingsworth and duo Jacelyn Benner and Sheelagh Schulze.
“We have plans to make this a full day conference next year and by the end of the afternoon, I had five amazing women step forward to say ‘count me in - I want to help make it happen.’ This just solidified my conviction that women are incredible sources of inspiration,” said Shaw-Froggatt.
