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Kingston NetworkBuddy is held by a small, changing core team and many volunteers who step in when there is capacity and a specific gathering to run. Roles are seasonal and flexible because everyone involved is also navigating study, work, family, and precarity.

The core team can shift with each season. The same people don’t hold every gathering; roles move with work, study, health, and family realities. These are the small teams that have capacity to carry each set of experiments.

KNB was built with the first KNB Pioneers, the core team, and the many networking buddies, partners & sponsors, and volunteers & contributors who have shared their stories, labour, and experiments along the way. This is theirs as much as it is Gail’s.

Your 2023-2025 Core Team

A woman with long brown hair wearing a black and yellow plaid shirt, smiling, in front of a black wall with a framed botanical print.

Designs KNB’s experiments, decides when there is enough capacity to run a gathering, and holds the mutual‑aid and “no one walks in alone” frame across all events. 

She also documents what happens—writing posts, updating the website, and carrying KNB’s relationships with partners, venues, and invited speakers.

SEASON(S) INVOLVED: From 2023-Present

Also represented KNB as a community partner at the International Student Symposium in 2024 and 2025.

Founder, chief laughter coordinator
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Since joining KNB in 2023, she has become the community’s most steady planner and anchor—quietly inviting new members, advocating for KNB in her own circles, and offering one‑to‑one encouragement that helped the community grow. 

With over 14 years of healthcare experience across three countries, including work in healthcare administration, newcomer programs, and community services, she brings strong leadership and project‑management skills that keep KNB’s gatherings inclusive, realistic, and humane.

SEASON(S) INVOLVED: 2023 Fall; 2024 Winter, Summer, Fall; 2025 Summer

Also represented KNB as a community partner at the International Student Symposium in 2024.

CHIEF PLANNING & STRATEGY
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A physician with over six years of experience in family medicine and medical clinics, Mariana believed in KNB’s mission from the very beginning and helped lay its foundations as one of the original networking buddies. 

She has a strong background working with minority and low‑income populations and brings that same care into KNB—inviting new faces, checking in with quiet participants, and helping everyone feel part of the “family” in each gathering.

SEASON(S) INVOLVED: 2023 Fall; 2024 Winter, Summer

Also represented KNB as a community partner at the International Student Symposium in 2024.

DIRECTOR, BEACON OF BELONGING
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With over 15 years of experience moving from architecture into event management, he has worked across large‑scale international conferences and virtual events, building his skills in project management, digital marketing, and creative direction.

He joined the KNB core team in 2024 to help design the backbone of one of its biggest gatherings, translating pre‑event survey insights into a structure that could hold 33 facilitators, a guest speaker, and a mix of newcomers and locals in one room.

SEASON(S) INVOLVED: 2024 Fall; 2025 Summer

Also represented KNB as a community partner at the International Student Symposium in 2025.

CHIEF EVENT PLANNER
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Joined the core team in Summer 2024, Charity has also been a networking buddy at city‑wide events, bringing a warm, welcoming presence and a steady commitment to supporting people navigating cultural change.

Her leadership was recognized when she was honoured as one of the NEXT Best 2023/2024 in Human Resources at St. Lawrence College, cited for her leadership skills and voluntary contributions to new‑student initiatives—strengths she now brings into KNB’s seasonal gatherings.

SEASON(S) INVOLVED: 2024 Summer Gathering

Also helped shape KNB’s early vision in 2024 by meeting with Kingston Immigration Partnership to explore a shared online hub where international students could find resources they need in one place.

COMMUNITY CATALYST

Charity Emeh

2024 Fall Gathering Project Team

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Licensed teacher and Advertising and Marketing Communications graduate from St. Lawrence College and a former SLC Filipino Club President, Regine leads KNB’s social media campaigns—building awareness, explaining what KNB stands for, and inviting people into the community in ways that feel real rather than promotional.

She was also recognized by St. Lawrence College’s School of Business through its NEXT Best celebrations in 2023/2024 for her determination, drive, and quiet leadership, recognition she carried into her work with KNB.

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN LEAD
A man with dark hair, glasses, and a beard wearing a light blue button-up shirt and dark pants, standing in front of a brick wall.

A digital designer specializing in UX and a photographer based in Kingston, Parth brings a clean, playful visual style to KNB, capturing gatherings in ways that highlight small interactions and connections rather than staged moments.

Parth and Gail first volunteered together at the launch of the Black Entrepreneur Ecosystem in Eastern Ontario—an early experience that later shaped how they co‑designed KNB’s 2024 Fall Gathering, where he planned the multimedia coverage and created the visual record that now anchors KNB’s Fall series.

BELONGING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Your 2024 KNB Advisors

A portrait of a middle-aged woman with gray hair, glasses, and pink lipstick, wearing a blue blazer and a patterned scarf.

A credentialed professional coach and cross‑cultural consultant based in Kingston, Elizabeth has over six years of experience helping leaders and internationally trained professionals navigate change and build culturally intelligent teams.

For KNB’s 2024 Fall Gathering, she offered generous leadership coaching to the core team and served as a key guest speaker—sharing her own long journey as an immigrant and modelling the kind of curious, empathetic presence that helped newcomers and locals understand what it means to “meet halfway.”

LEADERSHIP TEAM COACH
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Lisa is a professor, mentor, inclusion coach, and HR professional whose life has spanned India, a decade in Africa, and now three years in Kingston, experiences that deeply shape how she thinks about belonging, adaptation, and change. 

She offered strategic feedback on KNB’s gatherings and roles, moderated the 2024 Summer & Fall Gatherings, and helps the team keep values, relationships, and real human limits at the centre of every experiment.

BELONGING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
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Four women standing outdoors in a backyard with trees and a fence, smiling, with chairs, a table, and a red canoe in the background.