News & Stories

  The staff and board of Boys & Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters are deeply saddened by the passing of Ruth Kelly. Ruth was a longtime volunteer with our organization and served as Chair of the former Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton as well as the Marketing and Communications Committee.  She also was the first female Board Chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada.

We admired Ruth for her vision and her compassion and for always being there to help get the job done.

Ruth loved Alberta and especially Edmonton and she took on many roles in the community to help build this vibrant community she called home. Ruth was thoughtful and she cared and we will never forget the contributions that she made to our agency and to this community.

Following a press event on June 15^th, Mayor Don Iveson shared the following: “Ruth was phenomenal, the news is very sad for a lot of us, she was a mentor to me in many things, contributed a lot of leadership to the community broadly and through the United Way, helped change some of our thinking about poverty that inspired some of the work for End Poverty Edmonton. It was as a business community leader that she was doing that in our community, so the loss is deeply felt.”

We feel the same. 

To Ruth’s family we send our deepest sympathies and our love as you walk forward in your journey with all of our memories of Ruth.