The LiveWorkPlay News – Top 25 of 2025 – Live from the LiveWorkPlay Festive Family Gathering
Above: Live recorded broadcast of The LiveWorkPlay News from the Preston Event Centre, December12, 2025
Below: Notes from the broadcast as well as slides from our countdown recipients.
Welcome to the LiveWorkPlay Festive Family Gathering 2025!
We’ve had some sort of holiday gathering every year since 1998, and for those who don’t know me, I’m Keenan Wellar, and it’s my great honour to be your host this evening.
A quick bit of housekeeping, washrooms are that way down the hall, and I see most of you have discovered the cash bar already, right over here. Just to let you know we will be taking photos and videos tonight, the video is for the upcoming live broadcast of The LiveWorkPlay News, and the photos are just for fun for our Facebook page, but anyone that does not want to be in a photo, just let the photographer know about it. We have a three course meal coming, and this next piece is very important, we know some of you have requested alternatives, and we want to make sure that happens, but this is a big loud room with many different wonderful servers bringing the food, so if you get the wrong meal, please say something, right away, or get help from someone at your table, right away.
OK, speaking of tables, we do have some newcomers here tonight. LiveWorkPlay staff and Total Communication Environment staff have been doing some training together over the past few months, and we thought it would be fun to invite members to our events, as most of you know Caroline Matte and Tim Siebrasse are now supported by TCE, but also here tonight we have other newcomers from community and employment. Welcome!
Before we move on from talking about who is in the room, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that Terri is not here with us tonight, this is our first event since she passed away from a long battle with cancer, and we know she touched so many lives and of people who are here tonight, and this holiday party was one of her favourites, so I just wanted to say that Terri we are thinking of you, we miss you, we will never forget you.
Just a reminder that our next event is the new Make A Buzz Ottawa, our 31st anniversary and annual awards, in the Foundry event space at Bayview Yards, on Friday, April 17. I know it seems far away, but were’ only taking about 200 people, so please don’t hesitate, get your tickets as soon as you can. Makes a great holiday gift!
OK, we are going to get a start on The LiveWorkPlay News just before the salad course, then we’ll finish in it before the main course, because coming up with our dessert and coffee, later we will have a live performance by Kenny Hayes!
Thank you! And a quick update, as you know with our old countdown algorithm, we hadn’t quite figured out how to accurately combine our Facebook and Instagram stats, and now we’ve solved it, so tonight is our most accurate countdown, ever!
Lastly, honourable mention to up and coming stories, since December is not over, and also some stories we did not include in the countdown.
From last week, we had our holiday elf Ben working on the LiveWorkPlay greeting cards, and International Volunteer day, both of those stories will be in top 25 territory before the end of the year. Then stories we didn’t count, we had two celebrations of our top fans that we excluded from the list, and also, we had at a half dozen stories following last year’s Make A Buzz that would have taken up several top places on the countdown.
To give you an idea of what it takes to make tonight’s countdown, every story on the list had more than 1000 view, and the top 3 had 10,000, 15,000, and 25,000!
Alright, enough said, here we go with number 25!
Oh ya, speaking of Kenny Hayes, this story is about Gillian Gillespie’s performance at the Kenny Hayes summer showcase of music students! Gillian played two songs dedicated to her grandmother who passed away, and she delighted the 30 guests in attendance with her soulful rendition. Way to Gillian!
At number 24, thank you so much to Ryan and Heather for sending us photos and stories about their trip to Victoria and Vancouver. They both gained a lot of travel experience with help from LiveWorkPlay and of course their families. The walked, they gook boats, they rode a gondola, and of course, flew on airplanes. They wanted to share their story to inspire others to travel Canadian – way to go Ryan and Heather!
You knew Frances and Martin would crack the countdown somewhere, so here they are at #23, rocking their Halloween preparations. They picked up this awesome pumpkin from a local farmer and carved up a candlelit cat design, which looks pretty perfect to me, what do you all think about that?
Don’t worry, lots of employment stories are coming, including networking and advocacy, and this includes #22 on our countdown LiveWorkPlay joining in a special event on October 21st for Public Service Neurodiversity Week, with just a small selection of organizations invited to conversations with the delegates. Congratulations to Robert, Joelle, Anna, and Josh who reported that they the table was so swamped they did not get a break until the event was over!
Coming in at #21 as you know our staff team works all over the community and we only get to be together as a full group a few times a year. We have a gathering coming up next week, but back in June you all really appreciated this update about the work we were doing together to make sure that the work that we do and how we talk about it is properly aligned with our mission, vision, values, and principles! Let’s here it for the team!
More employment advocacy and network, at #20 webinar hosted by our friends at Ready Willing and Able for a national audience, with our own Anna Nelson representing LiveWorkPlay, plus Charmaine McIntyre from Inclusion Alberta, and our longtime partner Oly Backstrom from SCE LifeWorks in Manitoba. Let’s hear it for these champions of inclusive employment!
At #19 we have our Annual General Meeting, hosted online for ease and convenience, and while we had the normal excitement like electing the board, it was also the occasion to announce an ongoing celebration of the life of Terri Hill, because starting with Make A Buzz Ottawa 2026, the My Own Home bursary will be known as the Terri Hill My Own Home Bursary, a $300 award to any person supported by LiveWorkPlay who moves to a home of their own.
OK, you knew the Federal Employment Strategy Group and our fabulous volunteer chair May Gusella would be in the countdown, here it as at #18, each quarterly meeting had well over 1000 views, so we chose the most popular, which was the September 24 edition, way to go to Mary and the team!
At #17, at least year’s annual awards we recognized out friends at Options Housing, but they could not make it to the ceremony, so Daniel Harris joined them at their AGM on September 19, delivered an eloquent speech, and delivered the award to Jessica Osabuohien. Congratulations Options Housing and well done Daniel!
This is our last one before the salad service, thanks for your patience, at #16 we have Ryan Nevitt, an honorary lifetime member of LiveWorkPlay who now resides in Halifax Nova Scotia. Ryan found a way to be here tonight thanks to sharing his story back in June where he was a panelist at the Canadian Association for Supported Employment conference talking about his employment journey. Way to go Ryan!
I will be back after the salad for the top 15 and after the main course we’ll have a performance by Kenny Hayes!
I hope you enjoyed the salad, our main course will be on the way in about 15 minutes, so let’s not mess around, we’ll jump right back into the countdown with an awesome story at #15.
I can tell you right now, if this wasn’t posted during the summer holidays, this post with Jalynn and the long awaited arrival of her adopted guinea pigs Syrus and Cracker Jack, this story would have ranked even higher than #15. We’re so happy for all of you, and those snacks look really good, way to go Jalynn!
At #14, we celebrate LiveWorkPlay employment specialist Aya Elkerdany on the occasion of her graduation ceremony from back in June, receiving her Bachelor of Science in Psychology degree from the University of Ottawa with a magna cum laude designation in recognition of her impressive grade point average. It’s an amazing story that includes the determination of Aya’s family that she should have this opportunity for post-secondary studies in Canada, which in turn provided LiveWorkPlay an opportunity for a great staff team member. Way to go Aya!
All right let’s get back to some Friday night awesomeness at #13, LiveWorkPlay representatives were all over Bluesfest and especially the Green Day concert! Several of our members are also Bluesfest volunteers, and it was quite a night for them that went way past midnight! Rock on!
How about another music story? At #12 Naim Abdallah’s four-song EP release back in October was standing room only at the John Howard Society Coffee House in partnership with Ottawa Bluesfest. Naim has been attending the music program at John Howard Society for three years, and the creation and release of the EP is a goal that has been many years in the making. Congratulations!
At #11 we’ve got Mary Gusella again, plus Anna and me, and our partners at Ready Willing and Able and Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada. We all drew a huge live audience at the Disability and Work n Canada Conference on December 1 with some straight talk about including hiring. So, yay us!
At #10 Janet and Josh were some of the lucky fans of our Atletico Ottawa soccer team who hosted the Canadian Premier League championship during an early season snowstorm on November 10! Janet shared awesome photos and videos, including trucks clearing the snow for overtime. And in case you don’t know this story, the ICICLE KICK is already one of the most famous goals in soccer history with over a billion views – ehck it out! Congratulations Atletico Ottawa!
At #9 it’s a story 20 years in the making, back in September our very own Grace Hudson celebrating a 20th LiveWorkPlay anniversary. At the top that’s Grace from our 2004 yearbook, completing her Carleton University social work placement, and then more than 20 years later, here she is in May of 2025 with colleagues Maggie Dimock and Joshua Gray, at a special event for Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Grace spoke to the Queen that day, just one of the unusual (but not even close to the most unusual) events in her remarkable two decades at LiveWorkPlay.
At #8 Chris Jones usually finds his way into the countdown in one way or another, but in this case, he shares the spotlight with his volunteer match Bill Young. They attend sporting events, enjoy seasonal opportunities like Winterlude and boating, and they have visited almost every ice cream shop in the city. Last but not least, they also get into some cool woodworking projects, as you can see pictured here with Chris and his amazing birdhouse. Rumour has it a new project is underway, and we can’t wait to see it, thank you for the story Chris and Bill!
At #7, Ian Murphy has been having fun and contributing in different ways in his volunteer position at Mādahòkì Farm! As a matter of routine, Ian feeds the animals and cleans and refills the water troughs. He also joins in with different tasks that require a team approach, like rolling hay bales, as pictured here with colleagues Mariah, Amanda, and Ron. A big shout out to Mādahòkì Farm for offering such amazing volunteer opportunities!
At #6 Carl Sanderson has been working at Trio Westboro since November of last year. Most of Carl’s work takes place when the restaurant is not open, which Carl greatly enjoys, but it also means he doesn’t get to see all of his co-workers on a regular basis. But at their September all-staff meeting, Carl received many unsolicited comments from co-workers about the quality and importance of his contributions.
At #5, our Facebook fans enjoy fun stories, but they are also fierce inclusion advocates who closely follow current events, in this case, a settlement in Nova Scotia after a lawsuit was brough by individuals with disabilities and supporters. They argued against discriminatory policies that limited their support and ability to overcome poverty. The court agreed, and awarded them $32 million!
At #4 we were thrilled to help celebrate the 50th permanent position LiveWorkPlay has supported in the Federal Public Service. What a remarkable 8-year journey for Ashley Hagerman and Agriculture and Agri-Food. You can read the full story on our website, including quotes from her co-workers praising Ashley’s contributions and we could not agree more, congratulations!
At #3 we posted three stories and counting about our partnership with Levy TD Place where they have not only hired many of our members in a variety of positions serving customers and sports and entertainment events but have also started a paid administrative internships program which Josh, Manny, and Etienne have completed to date. And in the most up to date news, Levy is extending future internships from 3 months to 6 months!
Only two to go…I can tell you one is community, one is employment. What do you think?
Coming in at #2, our final community story in the countdown, the Zoom room meetup group that came out of COVID times started meeting up in person, with their August story blasting almost all the way to the top of our countdown chart. Their outdoor summer fun was followed up with some indoor partying at Absolute Comedy. Special thanks to organizer Jessica and all of the other volunteers who have kept the Zoom room meetups going for almost 5 years!
At #1 Check out this feature in the latest Menu Magazine from our amazing employment partner Calypso Theme Waterpark represented by Director of Human Resources Sandra Lalonde. You can read the full article online at the link below, it includes two very familiar faces, Shelby and Carl! As Sandra said “Calypso’s model shows what happens when inclusion is treated not as charity, but as infrastructure—something that strengthens the entire organization.” That is a great quote to end our countdown. The main course is on the way, followed by Kenny and dessert. Thank you for being such a great audience!
