Turning a crisis into a community response

In June of 2026, a Pembina Valley Pride billboard was vandalized. What could have remained a local act of vandalism quickly became a communications and community-relations challenge, particularly because Pride was already operating in a community where 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion could be politically and socially contentious.

I led the communications response, working from the initial incident through to the public response. There wasn't a communications department or a prepared crisis plan waiting for us. I had to quickly determine what we needed to say, what we wanted people to take away from the situation, and how to respond without allowing the vandalism itself to become the entire story.

Within approximately 48 hours, I developed and coordinated the response across social media, our website, community messaging, and media outreach. I shaped the messaging, coordinated the supporting creative and operational pieces, managed the response timeline, and made decisions about how to turn a negative event into something constructive.

The response received significant local and national attention and helped drive nearly 200 merchandise sales in three weeks. The merchandise also gave community members a tangible way to respond to what had happened while supporting the organization.

What I was responsible for

Strategy & messaging — Determining the purpose and tone of the response and developing messaging that was timely, clear, and consistent with Pride's values

Project coordination — Moving the response from an unexpected incident to a coordinated public campaign on a very short timeline

Digital communications — Coordinating website and social media content and managing the flow of information across channels

Creative — Developing and coordinating graphics and merchandise connected to the response

Media & stakeholder communications — Responding to media interest and communicating with community members and organizational stakeholders

Execution — Managing the practical details required to turn the response into something people could actually participate in

The result

• Response developed and launched within approximately 48 hours

• Significant local and national media attention

• Nearly 200 merchandise sales in three weeks

• Turned an act of vandalism into a broader community response centred on belonging and inclusion

Why I'm proud of it

I'm proud of this project because I wasn't simply producing communications. I was managing a fast-moving project with incomplete information, a short timeline, multiple audiences, and real reputational and community considerations.

The goal wasn't just to respond quickly. It was to respond well — to figure out what mattered, make decisions under pressure, coordinate the pieces, and give people something constructive to do with what had happened.

Building a public-education project from scratch

Pembina Valley Amplified started because I kept seeing complicated local issues reduced to Facebook arguments, misleading posts, and people talking past each other. I wanted to create a place where people could find the information behind those conversations and understand what was actually happening.

I founded the project and built it from the ground up, including the website, visual identity, social media presence, content approach, and systems for researching and publishing information. There wasn't an existing communications strategy or process to work from. I had to figure out what the project needed to be, who it was for, how it should communicate, and how all of the pieces should work together.

A significant part of the work involved researching contentious local issues before communicating about them. I worked through legislation, policies, public records, meeting materials, news coverage, organizational statements, and other sources to establish what could actually be supported by the available information. I then turned that research into articles, summaries, resources, and other content that people without a background in policy or local government could understand.

One of the larger projects was documenting local businesses connected to book-ban advocacy. I gathered publicly available information, organized it into a searchable resource, documented the sources behind it, and created supporting information that community members could use to decide how they wanted to respond. Another major area of work involved following local school-board discussions about book challenges and translating meetings, policies, and decisions into information that was easier for the public to follow.

The project also involved figuring out how the digital pieces worked together. I built the website structure, organized information across different types of content, developed the relationship between the website and social media, and worked out how longer research could become accessible public-facing communications without losing the context behind it.

Because many of the subjects were contentious, I also had to think carefully about tone. The goal wasn't to make every issue less controversial. It was to make the information clearer. That meant providing sources, explaining context, using plain language, and being deliberate about how information was presented when people were likely to disagree with it.

What I was responsible for

Project development — Defining the purpose, audience, structure, and processes for an entirely new communications project

Research & analysis — Researching legislation, policies, public records, meetings, news coverage, and other sources and determining how to communicate the relevant information accurately

Public education — Turning complicated or unfamiliar issues into accessible articles, summaries, resources, and other public-facing content

Digital development — Designing and building the website, organizing information, and developing digital workflows across the website and social platforms

Communications — Developing content, managing social media, establishing the project's voice, and communicating about contentious issues

Accessibility — Using plain language, clear structure, readable design, captions, image descriptions, and other practices to make information easier to access

The result

• Built an independent community communications and public-education project from the ground up

• Created and maintained the website, visual identity, social presence, and content systems

• Produced original research and public-education content on local policy and community issues

• Developed searchable resources that organized publicly available information in ways people could actually use

• Created a repeatable process for taking complicated information from research through to public-facing communication

Why I'm proud of it

I'm proud of this project because there wasn't really a blueprint for it. I had to figure out what the project should be while I was building it.

It taught me a lot about the difference between having information and actually communicating it. Research can be accurate and still be difficult to understand. A website can contain everything someone needs and still make it hard to find. And a social media post can get attention without actually helping someone understand an issue.

The work was about figuring out how all of those pieces fit together — researching carefully, deciding what mattered, building the systems to support it, and then finding a way to communicate it that people could actually use.

Rebuilding an outdated website to solve a search and usability problem

One of the larger projects I took on through Wildflower Media was rebuilding the ThriftyMeds website.

I was brought in because the existing website wasn't being properly indexed by Bing. For ThriftyMeds, that was a meaningful problem: Bing is an important search engine for part of the company's U.S. customer base, so poor indexing meant people looking for the service could have difficulty finding the business online.

The existing website was also extremely dated and difficult to use, so the solution needed to be more than fixing a technical search issue. I saw an opportunity to rebuild the site around a much clearer structure, stronger branding, and a substantially better user experience.

I completely redesigned and rebuilt the website, including updating the branding and creating a more cohesive visual identity. I reorganized the site's structure and navigation, improved how products and information were presented, and worked through the underlying website issues affecting how the site could be found and used.

The project required thinking about the website from several different perspectives at once. It needed to be discoverable by search engines, understandable to customers, functional as an online storefront, and practical for the business to manage.

What I was responsible for

Problem diagnosis — Identifying the website's search-indexing problem and determining what needed to change

Website redesign & development — Rebuilding the site's structure, layout, navigation, and functionality

Branding — Updating the visual identity and applying it consistently throughout the website

User experience — Reorganizing information and navigation to make the site easier to understand and use

E-commerce — Improving product presentation and the overall online shopping experience

Digital systems — Working through the technical pieces required to support the site's search visibility and online functionality

Project delivery — Taking the site from an outdated existing platform through redesign, development, testing, and implementation

The result

• Rebuilt the website to address the underlying search-indexing problem

• Updated the company's branding and visual identity

• Created a clearer site structure and navigation

• Transformed an outdated website into a substantially more functional e-commerce experience

• Created a stronger digital presence designed around both search discoverability and user experience

Why I'm proud of it

I'm proud of this project because the starting point wasn't simply, “We need a nicer website.”

There was a real problem affecting the business, and I had to figure out what was happening, determine what needed to change, and then rebuild the website around the larger goal rather than treating the symptom in isolation.

It's a good example of the kind of digital project work I enjoy: understanding the problem first, figuring out what needs to change, and then bringing the technical, visual, and user-experience pieces together to solve it.

Helping a summer camp grow through programming and communications

I first got involved with Rock Lake United Church Camp because I loved camp and wanted to help kids have the same transformative experiences I did growing up.

I ended up doing considerably more than that.

Over the years, I helped coordinate summer programming, volunteers, staffing, registration, communications, schedules, and the day-to-day logistics that came with running a summer camp. I also worked on the camp's website and communications systems, helping modernize how the camp presented itself and communicated with campers and families.

Camp already had a lot going for it. You don't make it since 1885 without having traditions and experiences worth sharing. The challenge was communicating those strengths to people who had never been there.

I helped rebuild the way the camp communicated, including work on the website, branding, promotional materials, social media, email communications, photography, and video. The goal wasn't simply to make the camp look more modern. It was to give families a better sense of what the experience was actually like and make them want to be part of it.

At the same time, there was a lot happening behind the scenes. Schedules changed. Registration numbers moved. Volunteers needed information. Programs needed adjusting. Parents needed updates. Staffing and resources had to line up with what was actually happening on the ground.

I learned pretty quickly that good program delivery is mostly about keeping a lot of small things moving in the same direction.

What I was responsible for

Program coordination — Supporting programming, registration, schedules, staffing, and day-to-day camp logistics

Communications — Website, email, social media, promotional materials, and communications with campers and families

Digital projects — Helping rebuild and maintain the camp website and improve its digital presence

Branding & creative — Supporting the camp's visual identity and creating promotional materials, photography, and video

Volunteer coordination — Communicating with volunteers, organizing information, and helping make expectations and responsibilities clear

Marketing & outreach — Helping communicate the camp experience to families who weren't already familiar with it

The result

• Helped modernize the camp's website and public-facing communications

• Supported promotional during a period of increased camp enrollment

• Helped coordinate programs serving hundreds of campers

• Supported volunteers, staff, families, and program teams across a busy summer operation

• Helped connect the camp's communications with the actual experience it was offering

Why I'm proud of it

I'm proud of this work because it taught me how closely communications and operations are connected.

You can make a great promotional campaign, but if the registration process doesn't work, volunteers don't have the information they need, or the program can't deliver what was promised, the communications haven't really done their job.

Camp taught me to think about the whole experience — what people see before they arrive, what they need to know when they get there, and all of the planning happening behind the scenes to make the experience possible.