meet the team
Dawn is a Bachelor of Social Work, a corporate communications professional and a Certified Volunteer Administrator with 11 years’ experience engaging volunteers in the non-profit/government and healthcare sectors. With 20+ years' experience in social services, Dawn works from a needs based perspective to understand the needs of vulnerable clients and creates impactful service to support clients, the community and the strategic mission of the organizations in which she works. Dawn has held many volunteer roles supporting the community. She was a Director of the Board at Durham Children's Aid Society (2018-2021) and she volunteers with PAVRO: Professional Association of Volunteer Resources of Ontario.
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Hoping I can soon add - Dawn is a Master’s Candidate and a conference speaker in the areas of non-profit service and volunteer engagement.
ABOUT ME
After more than 25 years in the profession of volunteerism Sharon has achieved success in many areas of engagement with volunteers. Beginning her career as a social worker she was drawn to being volunteer focused and achieved her Volunteer Management Certificate from Sir Fleming College. Not long after that Sharon achieved her certification as a Volunteer Resource Manager, CVRM.
Joining her professor who taught the course at Sir Fleming College, Sharon built the content to the new Volunteer Management Course for the OntarioLearn on-line platform and has enjoyed teaching students across the Nation for the past eight years. Most recently Sharon negotiated the partnership between the International organization Certified Volunteer Administrators and Sir Fleming College to become the first Canadian College to have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which provides assistance to students who wish to take the accreditation exam.
Working in the community doing home assessments for seniors, overseeing 300 volunteers at a half million-dollar events and currently developing and revitalizing a volunteer program at a health care facility Sharon has had a spectrum of volunteer engagement opportunities.
As a lifelong learning Sharon is attending on-line course to gain more academic relevance to her profession through Human Resource Management certificate course.
Sharon has been part of various associations in her profession and has taken active roles as an advocate, moving the profession to the status it deserves. The associations start with her Region as the Conference Chair, Vice President, and President. The provincial association as the Conference Chair and as their Director of Strategic Partnership. Sharon also was part of the Board of Directors at Feed The Need Durham.
As a consultant, she has encouraged and assisted her peers and colleagues her entire career, it was only when she was approached by an International organization to develop and design a National volunteer program that this avenue of opportunities was realized.
Sharon Elizabeth Hudson-Alipanopoulos
Founder and Executive Director
