Her key responsibilities involve coordinating and facilitating the CFOS community development plan and assisting community groups and organizations in the region to fulfill our cooperative and mutual mandate.

Laurel Burnham, Conference Co-organizer
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Laurel has spent the past 20 years organizing conferences, events and been instrumental in the creation of a number of successful community projects . These range from developing some of the first assisted living arrangements for seniors in the Okanagan, to the Penticton Community Gardens, as well a highly popular Canada Day, and more recently ongoing public markets the Penticton Night Markets, and ongoing winter markets in the Cannery Trade Centre. She is currently fundraiser for the Penticton & District Community Arts Council, and has been a fundraiser for the Canadian National Instutute for the Blind and the Kidney Foundation of Canada. She has organized a number of successful International Women’s Day festivals, and nontraditional career conferences for young women.

She organized and ran a series of Christmas season fair trade shows, conferences and workshops on Community Economic Dervelopment, workplace safety, poverty law advocacy and sexual harassment. Wise Woman Weekend is a spiritual conference/retreat for women held yearly, and another brainchild of Ms. Burnham. Laurel is vitally interested in small scale initiatives which promote healthy communities.