Awards

Our Horizon Award recipient Charlene Gray, known as Char to many of her friends and family. She became an early childhood educator in 1988 and has dedicated all of her professional life to the early childhood field. For the last 25 years, she has worked at Comox Valley Children’s Daycare Society, first in the preschool and childcare programs and for the last 10 years, as the senior manager where she successfully applied and received funding to create a $10 a day site. FYI, she was an original member of the $10 a Day Advisory Committee. She has taught as a sessional instructor for North Island College. Char is a proud member of the Child Care Coalition since 2010. She sits on the Canadian Child Care Federation Board of Directors for and she is also a member of the BC Provincial Child Care Council.

Char has been an active member of her local ECEBC branch since 1991. At the Provincial level, she served 9 years on the Board of Directors of ECEBC of which part of that time included the role as Chair of the Board, stepping down in 2019. Her other work with ECEBC includes becoming an Ethical Journey Guide and was involved in the updates to the ECEBC Code of Ethics where she worked closely with the original writers Sandra Griffin and Doctor Frances Ricks. She was also part of a working group that piloted the on-line version of the Best Choices: An Ethical Journey, giving invaluable feedback to improve user experience. Char was part of the ECEBC leadership initiative where her cohort created a project to support the leadership capacity of ECEs to seek municipal support and approval for posting universal picture signs on public buildings that welcomes children and makes them more visible in the community. She is the 2015 recipient of ECEBC’s Kay Britton Award.

Char has achieved many important accomplishments in the field of early childhood education. She has worked tirelessly in advocating for educators, families and children. I can safely say that she has disrupted the idea of the 24 hour day because outside of ECE, she is an extremely talented nature photographer. However, I think she would say that her most important roles are that of a wife, mother and grandmother to her family. Please join me in honouring Charlene Gray as the 2023 recipient of the Horizon Award.