Museum Volunteer Award
In partnership with the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums.
Museum Volunteer Award: Group
Missisquoi Historical Society and Museum’s Apple Pie Festival Committee
For nearly four decades, the Missisquoi Historical Society and Museum’s Apple Pie Festival Committee volunteers have promoted and preserved local history through the annual Apple Pie Festival in Stanbridge East, Quebec. The volunteer group consists of six incredibly dedicated core members; Pamela Realffe, Nicole Blinn, Robert Deschamps, Natalie Ingalls, Suzanne Dubé and Mona Beaulac, and grows to 80 additional volunteers annually to facilitate this living history event. Volunteers have contributed an extraordinary 10,000 hours to organizing and hosting the festival, and welcomed over 30,000 museum visitors.
The Missisquoi Historical Society was founded in 1899 with the mission of conserving, promoting, and disseminating the history and heritage of Missisquoi County. Located in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, the Society opened the Missisquoi County Museum in 1964 in order to expand its mission. The Society’s Apple Pie Festival Committee has proudly coordinated the long-standing tradition which is an annual fundraising event bringing people of all ages and diverse communities to enjoy apple pie traditions and local history. Apple orchards dot the region, and some 300 apple pies are baked and shared by volunteers at the festival, which usually happens in peak apple-picking season; mid-to-late September. Additionally, throughout the years the Apple Pie Festival has hosted a variety of historical activities, including demonstrations of wood carving, blacksmithing and forging using traditional techniques and oxen rides.
“The Missisquoi Historical Society’s Apple Pie Festival Committee is extremely honored to be granted this very prestigious award by the CFFM-CMA. Thank you to our nominators, Lac Brome Museum and Quebec Anglophone Heritage Association for their support. Credit also goes to the 80 plus volunteers that make this festival a success!”
Museum Volunteer Award: Individual
Joan Goldfarb
Joan Goldfarb, is a long-time volunteer in the Canadian cultural heritage sector, and is being recognized for her transformational contributions to advance Canadian art appreciation, support education and research, as well as being a visionary leader and role model.
Joan’s commitment is enduring and passionate to Canadian art through her commitment to sponsoring with her husband the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, and more recently the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Art Gallery of York University, Keele Campus in North York. As noted by one of her nominators, Joan’s extraordinary generosity is genuine and is demonstrated through “dedicating her time in participation as an active and engaged member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee” in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design at York University.
Not afraid to take on leadership roles in the cultural sector, Joan is a role model and mentor having served as a Board Member for twelve years and then Chair from 1993-1997 of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Joan also inaugurated the annual Goldfarb Lecture in Visual Arts, held at York University, which seeks to engage the public with artwork and stories of a chosen guest speaker. Joan is a recipient of the Order of Ontario.
When called by the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums to undertake a leadership on its Board of Directors, Joan dedicated seven years to being Co-President with Marie Senécal-Tremblay from 20027 to 2014. Joan is a Member of Order of Ontario (2003).
“One of the great gifts I have received in life was the opportunity to be involved in the world of museums. This has allowed me to learn, to understand the diversity of this country and its regions and its populations. Mostly it has offered the chance to meet and to work with some of the nicest, smartest and most generous people I have ever met.”– Joan Goldfarb
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