Bold Woman of the Month: Laurie Cardinal

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — March’s Bold Woman always goes the distance and beyond by fundraising for causes she believes in and hopes to inspire others to take the initiative to create change that will have a lasting impact throughout the community. 

Fort St. John’s Laurie Cardinal has been a personal trainer for over 15 years. Her personal training business, Carbon Strength and Endurance, offers its service in Prevail Fitness and Gators Gym. Cardinal also offers a teen boot camp out of Prevail, which aims to inspire local youth to get active. 

“By having a teen boot camp establishment here, it enables families to be able to access exercise for their teens at a really, really cheap cost,” said Cardinal. 

According to Cardinal, teens pay a fee of approximately $5 to participate in the boot camp. 

“It’s not something that is a big money maker for me, but it’s a bigger reward just seeing the teens come and work out.”

Cardinal’s teen boot camp is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of inspiring others to get active for a good cause. The personal trainer is also the founder and president of the Vertical Slam Ultimate Challenge Society, which hosts two events annually — the Vertical Slam and Sadownik Miles for Smiles. 

“The Vertical Slam is my baby,” said Cardinal. “It’s volunteer service for the community. Between Vertical Slam and Miles for Smiles, we’ve raised over $120,000 for the community just on volunteer time.”

Cardinal says the Vertical Slam event was established in 2017 when one of the society’s directors told her about an occurrence involving the lunch program at Taylor Elementary School.

The director said she had accidentally overpaid for her children’s food from the lunch program and told the school to “give it to someone who needs it.” The director told Cardinal she went to the school and was approached by the parent whose child was able to participate in the lunch program thanks to the overpayment.

“The parent was crying and grateful because her child literally had no food,” said Cardinal.

“So, that’s where the idea kind of bred for it.”

From there, Cardinal said she and her volunteers began “digging” into the community more and discovered teachers and school kitchen staff were taking money out of their own pay cheques to supply food for hungry children. That’s when Cardinal came up with the idea to raise funds through the Vertical Slam event to ensure no child within the school district would ever go hungry. 

“It helps them with basically any food program,” said Cardinal.

“We’ve had some [schools] use the funding for fresh fruit programs. We’ve had people use it to restart breakfast and lunch programs. We’ve had some use it to help kids learn how to cook. So it’s basically any access to any food for the kids.”

Cardinal says the society individually supplies all 22 schools within School District 60 with an equal amount of money. 

“We work with Loblaws to get them gift cards, and then I individually envelope them for every school so that it doesn’t go to the school district — it goes directly to the school,” said Cardinal. 

The society’s work doesn’t stop there — the Sadownik Miles for Smiles event was inspired by a close friend of Cardinal’s, an ultra runner whose wife passed away from cancer before he passed away suddenly himself. Both were members of the Vertical Slam Ultimate Challenge Society.

“We wanted to do a fundraiser for cancer. My husband is a cancer survivor,” said Cardinal. 

“So, we’ve been through that whole batch where the government doesn’t supply any financial help for people getting treatment.”

The Sadownik Miles for Smiles is a 24-hour-long event which consists of running continuous laps through the Fish Creek Community Forest. Similar to the Vertical Slam, the funds raised are used to purchase food gift cards, which are packaged by Cardinal and her volunteers.

“We individually envelop them and deliver them to the chemo nurses [at the Fort St. John Hospital],” said Cardinal.

“Then, as people come in to receive chemo, [the nurses] just hand them an envelope. People ask why we don’t just give them money, but this way, we make sure that it’s used for food. Then, if they need to use that other money, they would have used for groceries for another bill — [the gift card] can help alleviate some financial stress.”

Cardinal says fundraising for both initiatives is “absolutely her favourite thing to do” and attributes this to the way she was raised.

“I was raised to believe that to be a well-rounded human being, you should have some part of your life that you volunteer your time and give back to humanity or your community in some form or manner,” said Cardinal. 

“It feels so immensely good [to give back]. Even the directors that help me out — you can ask anyone of them, and they’ll tell you it’s such a good feeling.”

Cardinal feels honoured to be selected as March’s Bold Woman and hopes to inspire those who read her story to “make some change” in their own communities. 

“If you just take that one simple step forward and make a change, before you know it, years from now, you’re gonna be making this huge impact,” said Cardinal. 

“Take the courage and take the step because change is a good thing, and I encourage you to be more bold, step out of your comfort zone, and do something that you might be scared of doing. It can be one of life’s greatest, thrilling things, and it can open doors for you that you never thought were possible.”

More information about the Vertical Slam Ultimate Challenge Society and its initiatives can be found here or by emailing verticalslaminfo@gmail.com.

Is there someone in your life you’d like to nominate to be the Bold Woman of the Month? You can do so by filling out a nomination form here.