Christina Ranieri named Alumni of Distinction Volunteer of the Year award
Posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2022
Every year, Algonquin College celebrates the incredible achievements of its alumni through the Alumni of Distinction Awards. These awards honour the extraordinary contributions our graduates make to the community while achieving career success. Here is a closer look at the Alumni of Distinction – Volunteer of the Year award recipient Christina Ranieri.
President and Executive Director, Ability First Ottawa
Developmental Service Worker, Class of 2012
Christina Ranieri never lets her limitations stop her from having a joyful life. And she does everything she can to help others have a joyful life, too.
Ranieri is a longtime abilities advocate and consultant who, in 2014, founded Ability First Ottawa (AFO), a community non-profit organization that offers services and supports to people with developmental disabilities. Its services include a summer camp, adult skills training, entrepreneurship mentoring, and other programs that help people with disabilities reach their social, educational and employment goals.
“I am very blessed to live my joy,” says Ranieri, who is the driving force behind AFO’s many programs and its executive director and president. “I just want to see as many people live their joy [as possible]. And if your needs are met, and you feel safe, and you are supported, you’re going to do well.”
Ranieri recognized the effect lockdown would have on people in the persons with disabilities community early in the pandemic. In a quick pivot, she mobilized volunteers to make and distribute small emergency kits. The kits included a mask, hand sanitizer, a granola bar and information about the new coronavirus. The teams continued this work, distributing beefed-up kits with a variety of useful items, as the pandemic wore on. They handed out more than 2,000 kits.
In 2020, this work was recognized with a Covid-19 Heroes Edition Community Builder Award from United Way East Ontario, in partnership with Apt613. The change in direction blossomed into numerous other vital pandemic-time services offered by AFO.
“Pre-pandemic, we provided programming such as employment skills workshops and fun outings as well as housing navigation to assist with navigating the often extremely complicated funding systems for persons with disabilities,” she says. “During the pandemic, we have shifted to COVID outreach, peer counselling, mental health check-in, providing supplies such as PPE (personal protective equipment) and food to persons with disabilities in the community.”
Ranieri also helped supply and build 40 accessible “Porch Gardens,” which reduce food insecurity, increase nutrition and support better mental health for people with disabilities. She also helped 20 COVID “long-haulers” access the supports they need.
A member of a large extended Italian-Canadian family that regularly had big family gatherings when she was growing up, Ranieri began care-taking early, when her mother, a hairdresser, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Ranieri was 14. She took on more of the domestic duties, including caring for her eight-year-old sister. This experience — and the good supports she received as a child diagnosed with disabilities — were her inspiration for her own work.
Ranieri didn’t let others’ ideas about her abilities define her path.
She has spent a lifetime volunteering with organizations such as Persons with Disabilities, Shepherds of Good Hope, Jewish Family Services, All Hands on Braille Camp for Kids, and the Algonquin College mentorship program, and first graduated from Algonquin College in 2007, with a General Arts and Science diploma. She went on to receive Social Service Worker and Developmental Services Worker diplomas as well as a Crisis Management/Human Psychology certificate. She also completed a bachelor’s degree from Carleton University.
At Algonquin College, Ranieri found a supportive environment where she could access accommodations and health support in one location. This gave her the opportunity to learn the skills and coping mechanisms she still uses today to support herself and the Ottawa community.
“The skills I learned at Algonquin, as well as the friends I made while studying have been extremely valuable to not only my professional career but especially my volunteer work with Ability First Ottawa,” she says.
Today, AFO “fills the gaps” in service that many of its clients experience and offers them what they tell Ranieri they need. “I ask, ‘Where do you see yourself? What do you want to accomplish?” she says. “I help them set their goals. They can call me for advice. I am a certified psychotherapist, so why not?”
Ranieri has a lot going on and her creativity and enthusiasm seem boundless. She’s learned how to stay balanced and healthy by taking care of herself and setting good boundaries.
And, she says, the communities she works with have shown her nothing but kindness, understanding and acceptance.
“I am thankful for the opportunities and support the Ottawa community has given me and continue to do my best to give back as much as possible.”
Click here to purchase tickets for the Alumni of Distinction event on Sept. 29, 2022.
Click here to visit the Alumni of Distinction website