Tracey Ormond has a mission in life: to use her culinary talents to get healthy foods to people and reduce food waste.

Every single dish she creates is a labour of love to nourish and build community, whether it’s catering conferences or feeding seniors and families.

“I started catering because I honestly just love to cook,” Tracey says. “It feels good to provide nourishment to people and see them enjoy the food that I’ve created.”

For the better part of three decades, from waitressing to working in institutional kitchens, Tracey has been cooking with care. Her interest in food was sparked by her grandmother and mother, who frequently cooked signature meals from original recipes for her family.

“I saw how food brought people together, and that got me excited about trying new recipes myself,” she says.

Even when she worked on the road, driving across the country as a long-haul trucker, she was dreaming up ideas of how to make healthy wraps that are easy to eat with one hand, while sitting behind the wheel.

Today, she continues to harness the power of food and set the standard for catering excellence in Peterborough with her two businesses, That’s A Wrap Catering and her latest venture Classic Cooking.

Tracey partnered with Sally Harding of Nightingale Nursing a year ago to purchase Classic Cooking, a meal delivery service that delivers fresh, ready-to-eat meals to the doors of seniors and families in the Peterborough area.

“Knife and fork meals,” as Tracey calls them.

Unlike meal kit companies such as Hello Fresh and Chef’s Plate, which have introduced Canadians to online food deliveries that you have to prepare yourself, Classic Cooking delivers nutritious ready-made meals that can be heated in a microwave or conventional oven.

“We enable seniors and busy families to eat better, so they don’t have to decide at the last minute what they’re going to order and from where, or to grab a quick bite at a fast food joint because they don’t have time to make dinner,” Tracey explains.

Simple meals that are healthy and convenient are the foundation for Classic Cooking. Customers can order a variety of locally sourced and homegrown items on the menu. The meals are designed by Tracey and made from scratch by a team of cooks in her commercial kitchen at Ashburnham Funeral and Reception Centre. Together, they produce meals daily, which are shipped directly from the kitchen and arrive to customers in recyclable or compostable packages.

While Tracey is balancing the steadfast growth of Classic Cooking, she’s also in high demand supplying food to private parties, functions, and corporate events through That’s A Wrap Catering.

Tracey opened That’s a Wrap in 2013 and moved her operation to Ashburnham’s state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in 2014. With her employees, she runs a robust business that includes classes and workshops, on-site catering with the option of a liquor license, and off-site catering.

To order are wraps and hot meals, freezer dinners, and sandwiches with salads — made with ingredients purchased from local produce suppliers and the market. Using the kitchen at Ashburnham Funeral and Reception Centre also allows her to provide comfort food for funerals and grieving families.

As anyone who loves cooking and making food can tell you, it’s never just about the food — it’s also about caring for people. Tracey understands that even the smallest gesture can make her community better and stronger, which is why she donates much of her time to volunteer work.

She recently wrapped up her term as president of the Women’s Business Network of Peterborough (WBN) for 2018-19. She says her vision of being “better together” — the theme of WBN in 2018-19 — was to work with community-based organizations to accomplish far more than what might be possible working alone.

A case in point, Tracey points out, was taking leftover food from each WBN member meeting — a result of last-minute cancellations by members who had already paid for their meal — to feed people at community shelters, including the YES Shelter for Youth and Families, The Warming Room, One Roof Community Centre, and the YWCA.

“We’re a wasteful society, so it was a no-brainer that the food could be donated to shelters where it would get eaten,” Tracey says. “I was never turned away. It just seemed like the smart thing to do to feed the hungry in our community.”

Under her leadership, WBN members also raised $250,000 collectively for local charities from various fundraisers.

“To be able to say that I was in any way affiliated with that is incredible and humbling to me.”

Tracey’s compassion doesn’t stop there. Through the Rotary Club, she helps with One Roof Community Centre as well as a local breakfast club and Food Share. She’s on the board of directors of Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, WBN, and Inspire: The Women’s Portrait Project. She also frequently volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, the Peterborough Humane Society, and Peterborough’s Dragon Boat Festival.

While her list of volunteer obligations is long, Tracey doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal.

“Giving back is just who I am and what I love to do,” she says.

But for Tracey, it all comes back to food.

“I want people to feel like I created the best food for them. If I can help someone fit a good meal into their day, then I know I’ve accomplished something at the end of the day.”

That’s a Wrap Catering is located at 840 Armour Road in Peterborough in the Ashburnham Funeral and Reception Centre (840 Armour Rd, Peterborough). For more information, call 705-768-7168, email info@thatsawrapcatering.ca, or visit www.thatsawrapcatering.ca. You can also follow That’s a Wrap Catering on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

To order from Classic Cooking, visit www.classiccooking.ca or call Tracey at 705-927-5591 or Nightingale Nursing at 705-652-6118.

Diane Wolf believes that working as a therapist is not dissimilar to working as a translator. Communication only works if people are speaking the same language — or have an interpreter who can translate for them.

Diane is no stranger to the art of translation. In 1982, she was a translator working on an American army base. She’s fluent in German and met her Austrian husband of more than 40 years while living in Europe. She spent the first four years of her marriage in Germany before returning to Canada to raise her children.

Translation and communication continue to be a key theme in her work as a counsellor.

“I say to my couples: it’s like you’re speaking two different languages,” Diane says. “One of you is speaking German and one of you is speaking English — and I’m going to translate for you.”

Most couples Diane sees have never heard of “love languages” before. Once they come to understand what a love language is, it becomes an essential part of how they communicate with their partner.

“I use a modality called emotionally focused therapy that really helps couples look at the process of how they interact, instead of the content of their interactions,” she explains.

Diane helps couples see that the problems they’re having are much deeper. It doesn’t really matter what a fight appears to be about on the surface; it’s likely that something far more important is triggering the emotions underneath it all.

Love languages can help couples learn how to tap in and satisfy the communication needs of their partner — or anyone they care about in their lives. Better communication makes dealing with emotions easier.

According to Diane, five basic love languages exist: quality time, acts of service, gifts, physical touch, and words of affirmation.

“We communicate in a way that makes sense to us, so we communicate with others in the way that we would like to be communicated with,” Diane says. “Instead, we should be figuring out what the other person needs.”

While you can’t necessarily become fluent in all five love languages, you can increase your awareness of the communications needs of others.

“You can learn to become multilingual,” says Diane. “It’s also important to recognize our own love languages, so that we can let other people know how they can show love to us.”

While Diane works with many couples, she also works with many first responders experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and she sees many people who are dealing with anxiety.

Now, just four months into running her own therapy practice, Diane understands that the common thread in her professional life has always been her fascination with neuroscience. Connecting neuroscience to the body — and its natural reactions to real or perceived threats — directly translates into all of the work that she does.

“Your brain cannot differentiate between real or perceived danger — the effect on the body is the same,” explains Diane. “I help people understand how our bodies are designed to respond to stress. It’s that fight-or-flight response. In public speaking, people get nervous because they’re perceiving emotional danger and worried that they’ll make a mistake or mess up. I help them deal with overcoming anxiety by focusing on what their body is doing and how to control that.”

She admits that she’s always been fascinated with brain science, reading journal articles for fun and buying “brain textbooks” for courses she wasn’t even taking. Her first degree was in neurophysiological psychology, which continues to be her passion. Her second degree was an MBA, but she then returned to her first love by doing a second Master’s degree, this time in Clinical Counselling. She is also a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional.

Diane herself has been a public speaker for over 30 years and she was a communications professor in the business department at Trent University. While her therapy practice is very busy, she is always available to book speaking engagements.

“I’m doing some workshops in the fall on what I call Declutter Your Mind,” Diane says. “We use neuroscience to help people overcome anxiety, which is really a cause of having your mind cluttered.”

“When we understand how the brain works, we see that our bodies are simply responding as they are designed to when they sense physical or emotional danger. Hormones flood our bodies preparing us to fight or run, and our ability to think clearly is impaired.”

“The problem is, fight-or-run strategies don’t necessarily serve us in a society where we are less likely to need physical energy and are more likely to need to be able to think clearly,” Diane says. “So I teach people to rewire their brains to enable them to respond in a way that serves them better.”

Diane Wolf Counselling is located in Peterborough. For more information, contact Diane at 705-772-5654 or diane@dianewolf.com or visit dianewolf.com. You can also find Diane Wolf Counselling on Facebook.

Lesley Heighway is in the big business of saving lives.

As President and CEO of the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Foundation, Lesley juggles multiple hats in her philanthropic role: business, policy, advocacy, and charity. At the end of the day, her main responsibility is to ensure money keeps rolling into the Foundation and through to the region’s only full-service, acute care hospital to provide continuous high-quality care for patients and their loved ones.

The PRHC Foundation is committed to supporting the hospital’s Regional Centres of Excellence for cancer care, cardiac care, and vascular surgery — some of the fastest growing and most innovative areas of healthcare, and which serve a population of up to 600,000 people from across Peterborough County and beyond.

Lesley works diligently within the community to help fill the gap where government funding ends by increasing annual revenue, developing new partnerships and extending the philanthropic reach of the Foundation needed to deliver everything from compassionate care to scientific advances.

For eight years, Lesley has led a team of professionals and volunteers who raise between $5 and $7 million every year for PRHC — more than $25 million over the past five years alone.

“The government does fund a portion of hospital operations, but it doesn’t fund hospital equipment and technology that our doctors and nurses use here every day to deliver great care,” she says.

Community donations fund the ground-breaking education, leading-edge research and innovation, state-of-the-art technology and facility enhancements that form the backbone of patient care at PRHC and help bring new lifesaving services to our region.

“Without donor investment, none of this would be possible,” Lesley says. “Our donors truly have touched every single area of care in this hospital.”

The hospital’s ability to fund the best equipment and technology is also key to attracting and retaining the brightest minds in healthcare, and to keeping PRHC’s standard of care on par with the top hospitals across Canada.

Lesley’s passion for healthcare philanthropy and improving a patient’s experience runs deep and is rooted in her family’s lived experience of having to travel long distance for cancer care services in her home province of New Brunswick.

She recalls the physical, emotional and financial strain on her parents, who had to drive hours from a small community to a hospital in Saint John, for her father to receive cancer radiation treatment, five days a week over a six-week period.

“I saw the toll that this had taken on their lives, with the three-hour drive and having to reside in Saint John, which was the only regional centre in New Brunswick at that time,” she says. “For me, I feel like it has come full circle. Through the work that I do, we can ensure that in Peterborough, people won’t have to travel far from home to receive great care.”

For anyone interested in giving, the Foundation welcomes and encourages donations of all kinds: life insurance, bequests, cash, securities, and memorial donations.

No matter how big or small the donation, Lesley and her team help thousands of people understand the tangible ways their dollars are transforming healthcare for patients from across the region.

“Donors are touching the lives of patients every day,” she adds. “As a foundation, our accountability is first and foremost to our donors. While we give donors the opportunity to give back, we also have the responsibility to communicate to them how their donations are making a real difference in the lives of patients.”

To recognize the generosity of donors, the Foundation communicates impact in its publications and social media, through the media, invitations to donor recognition events, and permanent recognition on the donor wall at the Health Centre. They also share inspiring stories of patients and donors themselves, as well as community partners who have dedicated themselves to the cause of bettering local healthcare.

Lesley says a high point of gratitude to existing donors is inviting them for a tour at the hospital after an investment has been made.

“Donors get to see firsthand how our physicians and our patients are benefiting and how they have contributed to enabling our hospital to deliver better care.”

Using her vast experience in sales and marketing management and an MBA specializing in leadership, Lesley aims to foster innovative and out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to fundraising, while still maintaining the drive and compassion that fuels inspiration among her team.

“Our hospital is at the forefront of innovation, leading with forward-thinking teams. Our job at the Foundation is to listen to the vision the hospital has in each of the critical areas and then come up with our own creative ways for raising funds to support it.”

Over the last two years, Lesley has successfully led efforts to fund:

• The $1.1 million needed to install two Emergency Department X-Ray Trauma Suites featuring wireless imaging technology that reduces the need to reposition patients during image-taking and quickly produces sharper images for faster, more accurate diagnoses.
• The Martin & Denise Pick Learning Centre, a $3.1 million, 4,300 sq. ft., state-of-the-art clinical, education and meeting facility supporting continuous learning, innovation and the future of world class patient care at PRHC.
• A $250,000 investment in the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) Clinic at PRHC, where staff provide quality cancer care to children in their own community.
• $230,000 for seven new incuwarmers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), enabling the vital care of vulnerable newborns in critical situations through the warmers’ open warm workstations with access for up to three medical experts and built-in life-saving resuscitation equipment.
• $550,000 in state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and technology to facilitate faster and more accurate diagnoses and treatment.

While the success of PRHC Foundation’s fundraising efforts speaks for itself, Lesley’s passion for philanthropy extends far beyond Peterborough and the Kawarthas. She works with an advocacy and advisory group of regional hospital foundation CEOs from across Ontario. As one of Peterborough’s leading experts in legacy giving (donating through estate plans), she plays an active role in working with financial and legal advisors.

She also shares her extensive knowledge and experience with the community through a wide range of board and advisory roles with other organizations and service clubs, as well as a variety of coaching and mentoring relationships with fundraising and young business professionals.

Delivering world class patient care, Lesley points out, is a complex endeavour with many dedicated people working on the front line as well as behind the scenes, including her team who works hard to create a workplace culture that fosters collaboration, engagement, creativity, passion and results.

“I’m very proud of my team and what we’ve been able to accomplish,” she says, smiling. “There is great meaning in what we do. Some of us have had jobs where we’ve had to leave our heart and soul at the door. That’s not the case here.”

The Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Foundation is located at One Hospital Drive in Peterborough. For more information about the PRHC Foundation and how you can make great health care possible in our community, call 705-876-5000, email foundation@prhc.on.ca, or visit www.prhcfoundation.ca. You can also connect with the PRHC Foundation on Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo.