KidSport Ontario has announced further additions to the Board of Directors of its holding company Play For All Sports Inc. (PFA) to help further its mandate to remove financial barriers for kids to participate in organized sports.
Joining the PFA Board is Shannon McGinnis, who currently serves as Executive Vice President, Non-Financial Risk, Risk Management for TD Bank Group. Ms. McGinnis brings a strong background in operational risk management and executive leadership from the banking sector.
Also joining is Dr. Lisa Kikulis, who is an Associate Professor of Sport Management at Brock University. Over the past 30 years, she has worked with not-for-profit, public, and commercial sport organizations bringing a policy and organizational change lens to understanding and improving participation, access, and opportunity in sport at provincial and community level.
The addition of Ms. McGinnis and Dr. Kikulis continues a period of expansion of KidSport Ontario, both at Board and community chapter level. Their appointments follow the additions of Jennifer Smith (Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations & Chief People Officer, Burlington Hydro), Graham Cocking (General Manager, Ford Performance Centre) and Tommy Wharton (formerly High Performance Director, Canadian Sport Institute Ontario) earlier in 2022.
KidSport Ontario also welcomes the addition of Nicola Lightstone to KidSport Sudbury, who follows the additions of B’Jamiin Melamed-Turkish, Andrew Blakely, and Matthew Sebesten to the chapter earlier in 2022. The expansion of the Sudbury committee comes on the heels of the opening of the new KidSport Kingston chapter, led by Desmond Rampersad and Andrea Barrow.
“These latest additions complete what has been an aggressive and very exciting drive to bring powerful volunteer expertise and leadership into KidSport Ontario at all levels” said Paul Varian, Chair of Board of Play For All Sports Inc. “At KidSport, we believe all kids should have the right to participate in organized sports, regardless of their financial predicament and we are excited at the coalition we are building in Ontario of influential and capable leaders who fundamentally believe in our cause.”
“Our community chapter growth will continue into 2023,” Varian continued, “to ensure that the $4.43m of support given to KidSport by the Canadian Federal government through its Canadian Sport For All Initiative is dispersed through community sport organizations to the kids who need it most.”
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Contact Information:
Sara Restani, Program Manager, KidSport Ontario