Fonds P118 - Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) Sudbury fonds

LEAF Sudbury is a local branch of a national non-profit organization called Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). It works in accordance with the national organization’s mission, which is “to advance substantive equality for all women, girls, trans, and non-binary people.” The organization focuses on litigation, law reform, and public education.

The idea of creating a LEAF branch in Sudbury started in September 1989, with the determination of Mary Lue Hinds, a member of the national organization. She contacted Mary Chrow, Director of Development at the head office, who discovered that three women from Sudbury had supported LEAF: Trish Hennessy, Anne Cole, and Carmen Simmons. Following Ms. Chrow’s visit to Sudbury to meet all four women, the founders developed plans for LEAF Sudbury. A decade later, in 1999, LEAF Sudbury signed an agreement with LEAF National and became an official branch of the organization.

Since its inception, LEAF Sudbury has organized many important fundraising events. The event with the highest attendance, the Person’s Day Breakfast, celebrates the day when Canadian women were deemed “persons” by the Privy Council of Great Britain, in October 1929. Among the guest speakers who have participated in this event: Marie Poulin, Dr. Lorna Marsden and Dr. Nancy Olivieri. Some of the funds raised at the Person’s Day Breakfast are used for the LEAF Book Project to purchase books, magazine subscriptions and videos dealing with women’s issues. At the outset, twenty-one French and English high school libraries in Sudbury benefited from this fundraising, until the money raised was later donated to the Greater Sudbury Public Library.

In 1995, LEAF Sudbury approached the local branches of the YWCA and the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW), to ask for their collaboration in creating an event called Celebrate Women, which takes place every year around International Women’s day. It gives the public of Sudbury an opportunity to meet a best-selling female author and discuss her book. The three organizations also acted in concert to have the Amphitheatre at Bell Park named after Grace Hartman, the first woman mayor of Sudbury, and one of the founders of the YWCA and CFUW in Sudbury.

The Sudbury Branch of LEAF ceased operations in 2018.