ABOUT US
Our Mission
To support individual learners in reaching their goals, gaining new skills and achieving their full potential.
Our Vision
Creating a culture and a community that encourages learning and respects those who reach out to upgrade their literacy levels.
Meet Our Staff
Meet our team of compassionate and caring staff! We are committed to offering you the most enriching, enjoyable and memorable learning experience.
Amy Pipe, Executive Director
The Board of Directors of the Literacy Alliance of West Nipissing appointed Amy Pipe as Executive Director in March 2022. Amy is replacing Nanditta Colbear who did a fantastic job leading the organization for 11 years. Amy is very excited to lead the agency into new growth as it has a wonderful reputation for assisting so many over the years. Amy looks forward to sharing the excitement of learning and promoting its benefit to the entire community. Together, we can achieve amazing positive outcomes through education!
Amy brings more than 20 years of experience as an educator, in adult education and Literacy and Basic Skills, student success, and classroom instruction from the elementary to the university level. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Education and a Masters of Education. Amy is passionate about helping learners reach their individual goals, and a believer in lifelong learning. She values good education and feels strongly that education is a very individual journey. She enjoys being part of the process in helping others grow in their educational pursuits.
In Amy’s spare time, she enjoys spending time with her two teenage boys and her husband. She thoroughly enjoys reading, cooking, baking and creating visual art. She loves to collect found objects on beaches she visits and place them in her mixed media painting collages. In the future, she plans to run some visual arts literacy workshops at the agency!
Lauren Fisher, Program Coordinator
Lauren is our Program Coordinator here at Literacy Alliance of West Nipissing, we were lucky to have her as a placement student from college in September and she became officially part of our literacy team in October. Lauren helps with our learner intake appointments and assessments. Lauren does some coaching of learners in specific programs. She has also begun adding some great content to our digital literacy offerings. The pandemic changed everything for Lauren as she spent this time re-evaluating her long term goals and wanted a change in her career path. Literacy Alliance is so happy she chose us!
Lauren comes to the field of literacy with vast working experiences in a variety of different careers, from film and television to office administration. Her journey in education was not always an easy one and this helps her in her role here. She has a great amount of empathy and understanding when relating to adult learners. She is able to assist our learners in their learning goals and believes it is never too late to learn! When Lauren is not working at the agency she loves to spend time with her dog hiking and enjoying the outdoors. Staying active and learning new things brings Lauren much joy!
Denise Lafontaine, Learning Coach
Denise Lafontaine is a valued member of the team at Literacy Alliance. Denise has many years experience as an educator in various settings and environments. As a Learning Coach, she dedicates most of her time and energy to supporting our learners with reading and writing as well as helping prepare them for GED success! She has been with us at the agency since 2017. Denise is passionate about her work and believes that strong literacy skills are paramount in achieving continued success in life. She enjoys her time at the agency, working in collaboration with our learners and staff team, by offering support and facilitating workshops from time to time. Denise is delighted and thrilled every time she gets the opportunity of witnessing the growth and success of our learners. Denise has great compassion and deeply cares for each of our learners, which provides such a welcoming environment.
Some of Denise's hobbies and interests include gardening and sewing. Along with her day-to-day support at the agency, Denise has offered innovative sewing workshops. With her guidance, individuals of all skill levels can learn simple sewing techniques from reinventing used linens into new pieces. Apart from the happiness Denise gets from sharing her knowledge and skills at Literacy Alliance, her biggest joy in life is her family and spending time with them.
Shauna Taylor, Workshop Facilitator
Shauna Taylor starting working for Literacy Alliance of West Nipissing as a Program Coordinator in April 2022. As the Program Coordinator, she helped with learner intakes and assessments as well as assisting in developing learning plans. Shauna now works on a part time basis with our agency as a Workshop Facilitator for special workshops we host from time to time. These include financial literacy programs. When Shauna isn’t helping Literacy Alliance with workshops she is working full time as a faculty member at Canadore College teaching in the ECE program.
As a published children’s book author, she enjoys taking the small moments and experiences from life, and bring them to life in her writing. Shauna’s biggest joy is spending time with her children and husband and sharing life’s adventures together.
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
Introduction to Our Organization
We are a not-for-profit organization in the community of West Nipissing. We provide personal and professional life skills as well as customized programs to suit all individual learning needs.
Our goal is to constantly provide superior quality one on one learning opportunities, and we strive to provide a high level of professionalism in the delivery of our services. We aspire to actively promote literacy in the community and be ambassadors.
Our objective is to embrace literacy innovations to maximize learner satisfaction, and create an enjoyable environment that encourages and inspires adult learning.
We aspire to actively promote literacy in the community and become literacy ambassadors.
Our objective is to embrace literacy in the community and be literacy ambassadors.
Our objective is to embrace literacy innovations to maximize learner satisfaction.
We have created an enjoyable environment that encourages and inspires adult learning.
A not-for-profit organization and a registered charity in West Nipissing.
We provide personal and professional life skills.
We customize our programs to suit individual learning needs/goals.
Our goal is to consistently provide superior quality one on one education.
We strive to provide a high level of professionalism in the delivery of our services.
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