A humanitarian among us

Jodie Densmore, originally from British Columbia, is a former soldier and emergency response coordinator with the Red Cross. She now resides in the area after taking over the day-to-day operations of Prescott Russell’s United Way as its executive director. Going from an emergency response coordinator, tackling challenges like floods, forest fires and forced evacuations to managing fundraising campaigns for various social organizations is obviously a change of beat. But Densmore sees the potential of United Way and its partners to do more in our community.

Jodie Densmore’s career as a humanitarian peculiarly started with the Canadian Armed Forces in the early 2000s. She travelled to Afghanistan and joined a provincial reconstruction team as a combat medic. She completed her master’s degree, studying human vulnerabilities such as food security, while walking around with a rifle on her shoulder in a foreign country under the threat of IEDs and ambushes. When asked why a humanitarian would join an armed force in a country where some factions are very hostile to foreigners she replied, “Sometimes, if you want to help people, you have to fight for them.”

Once she met her husband, an RCMP officer, and had her first child, she realized that her deployment days in the Canadian Armed Forces were behind her. So after a decade of serving her country and the people of Afghanistan, she joined British Columbia’s branch of the Red Cross as a disaster response coordinator, to serve communities in distress from floods, earthquakes and forest fires. Her territory consisted of the southern half of BC. She was the only full-time staff, everyone else were volunteers, so when there were no disasters or emergencies, she spent her days meticulously planning and orga- nizing active responses. She also acted as the liaison with communities with their own emergency planning.

A new chapter

In 2014, Densmore’s husband was offered a position with the RCMP in Ottawa. She had to leave behind her home province and a job she loved. She wasn’t too sure what she would do once she lived in Prescott-Russell. She never really took a maternity leave when she was with the Red Cross, so she thought she could take it easy for a while until she finds employment. Plus, at the time, she was remotely training her replacement at the BC Red Cross. For Densmore, remaining still and at home was easier said than done. She received a phone call from a friend telling her there was an executive director’s position with United Way of Prescott-Russell. The job asked for fluency in French with fundraising and business background. She told her friend that she clearly did not have the required sets of skills but that since she didn’t get interviewed for so long that she would at least go and meet the recruiters, who after a first round of interviews, did not find any suitable candidate.

She was convinced she was not the right person for the job. Her recruiters and the board of administrators had a very different opinion of her. They opted to choose Densmore as their new executive director and were convinced she would learn French in a short amount of time. For over a year, the Board of United Way of Prescott Russell didn’t have a full time director and managed