Tag Archives: Reel Youth

Cortes Island Academy: Looking back to lessons learned and forward to 2023/2024

“It’s such a different experience from normal school. I think really just connecting with people, and having a class where you can be friends with everyone in it.” 

 “It regains my faith in humanity a little bit, seeing everyone be so supportive.”

“A lesson that I’ll be taking with me, is that I can learn from everybody who I meet.”

Those were some of the student comments from the Cortes Island Academy website. The 2022/2023 semester is now over and the academy is preparing for a Forest Ecology Semester in 2023/2024.

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About the Cortes Island Seniors Society

“The Cortes Island Senior Society, as it is now called, was registered in 1987, but previous to that there were seniors groups.  I think mainly they called themselves the old age pensioners. They eventually became a seniors group. At some point when they wanted to build,  someone told them that they weren’t even called a building society, so they decided to become the Cortes Island Seniors Building Society, which they were for a number of years,” explained Sue Ellingsen, Vice Chair of the Cortes Island Seniors Society. 

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Folk U Radio: The Cortes Academy brings High School Programming to the island

[From the Archives: Mar 4, 2022]

Could it be true? What does it mean? How can my kids or I participate/help/get involved? Jeff Lontayao, District Coordinator of Student Options and Opportunities, Rhonda Teramura, Homestay Coordinator, join host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to discuss the Cortes Island Academy and what this innovative high school program means for the Cortes Island community.

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Mark Vonesch 4: Working with Cortes Island’s Volunteer Community

The October 15 election is in a little less than two months. So far, Mark Vonesch is the only candidate for Cortes Island Regional Director. 

In the fourth of a series arising from an interview with Vonesch, he was asked what he would bring to the office from his years of experience working in Cortes Island’s volunteer community.

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Mark Vonesch 2: Supporting Cortes Island farmers

In the second of a series of programs about his running for Regional Director of Cortes Island, Mark Vonesch talks about growing up on a farm and what his rural background could mean when it comes to representing Cortes on the Strathcona Regional District Board.  

His family operated a dairy farm, with 50 cows, outside Olds, Alberta. Mark is the oldest of six children, which he jokes may have been a strategic move by his parents to have more help on the farm!

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