ACN Canada: mission

Being part of the national organization, ACN Canada shares its mission of helping
local Churches by the following means:
  • Church and chapel construction or renovation
     
  • Education for seminarians, members of religious orders and catechists
     
  • Means of transportation for missionaries, priests, nuns and catechists
     
  • Help to refugees and displaced people
     
  • Evangelization through radio and television broadcasts, in many local languages
     
  • Printing and distributing Bibles and religious publications
     
  • Distribution of mass stipends to needy priests.

ACN Canada can also be entrusted with special projects. Please consult the section dedicated to our activities, for more information.

chapelle flottante

Floating chapels reach out to people without churches or pastors, along the rivers of Russia.

 


Goals

In the short and medium term, our goals are the following:
  • Increase our sources of revenue to better meet needs
     
  • Reduce administration costs as a proportion of revenue
     
  • Increase public awareness of ACN and create a sense of belonging among our friends and benefactors
     
  • Provide benefactors with better information on the tax advantages of donations
     
  • Promote planned giving (legacies and other donations)
     
  • Make optimum use of the Internet to increase our contacts with our friends and benefactors and maximize the net value of the donations we receive
     
  • Start preliminary work towards the creation of a second ACN office in Canada

For more information on each of these goals, please consult our projects and donations sections.

Moto pour prêtre

Thanks to his bush bike, this priest will be able to tackle the jungle trails and reach many more.


Organization

Aid to the Church in Need (Canada) Inc. is a not-for-profit organization incorporated in 1982 under federal laws. Its head office is located in Montreal.

ACN Canada is headed by a board of directors consisting of seven elected volunteers:

BD ACN Canada

Rick Jones, Hans VanLeeuwen, president, Patricia Smith Robertson, Steven Dugal, Lou Kozak, Jeanne Coutu and Marie-Claude Lalonde, national director. Sylvie Soulard was absent.

 

 

National office team

The executive team is made up of six people. The Director is chosen directly by the Board of Directors. Presently, Marie-Claude Lalonde, a lawyer and member of the Quebec Bar holds the position. Before joining ACN in 2000, she practised in a private law firm.

The members of the team are, in the usual order:

  • Amanda Griffin, Assistant and Support Communications in English
  • Marie-Claude Lalonde, Director
  • Sheemla Appaya, Accounting and Marketing
  • Mario Bard, Head of Communications
  • Joseph Brisindi, Database Manager
  • Daniel Villeneuve, Clerk and Graphic Designer

 

  

ACN's team members

 

History

Before the incorporation of ACN Canada, volunteers including Marie-Thérèse Chevalier from the newspaper "Jésus Marie et Notre Temps" were collecting donations for Aid to the Church in Need. These donations were counted as Canadian but were managed by ACN France. Since 1982, fund-raising and management activities have been carried out from the Montreal office.

The role of a national office being mainly to raise funds so that the organization it belongs to meets its objectives, we have chosen to illustrate the results of Canadian activities by the chart shown below. The chart reflects the general state of the economy, but ourthe objective is to promote new growth, for the needs have not diminished.

Anyone interested in knowing more about the activities these funds have supported should refer to the history of the international organization.