In Remembrance of Sherman Herodier - An Amazing Soul that Touched all of our Lives

Not too many times in your lifetime you come across special people that make an impact on your life. Our team at Canadian Ecotourism Services (CES) have all had the privilege to have met Sherman Herodier. We all had more than just a working relationship with him. We all consider him a close friend and an Elder that we can all look up to.  Each of us always looked forward to connecting with him and his amazing sense of humour always made our day. He was a strong Cultural Ambassador in Eeyou Istchee and spoke so highly of preserving his culture for future generations. His kind soul has touched all of us and we will always remember him.

Here are a few words from our team…

“I guess I knew that Sherman and I would be lifelong friends when he trusted me enough to give me a Cree nickname. After a week together in Waskaganish, Sherman looks at me and says 'Jason White . . . White . . . . hmmmm, Gawabaitch (don't quote me on the spelling), and then he and the other guys all laughed. I figured they just thought it was funny that I now had a new name in Cree.  It wasn't until a couple of days later that my friend Paul Diamond said to me 'you know that nickname Sherman gave you? Well, it doesn't exactly mean 'white' like the colour.' I had be duped! But by a sweetheart of a guy.

And then a couple of months later I'm at the Air Creebec gate getting ready to board around 7:00 am, and I hear 'hey, Gawabaitch' . . . and as I stood up to go and see my friend Sherman at least 30 Cree people looked at me and started to laugh, lol.  Not in a mean way of course.  I'm going to miss him.” – Jason White

“Every time I think of Sherman, I have a smile on my face. I feel so grateful to have known him. He was such a kind and loving soul and I’ll always remember him.” – Amanda Huculak

“We at the CES were all greatly touched in different ways by Sherman and are so saddened by his passing. He was what we all hope to be when it comes to being a humanitarian.  His spirit will rest high in all of us. Rest in the highest spirit Sherman, and when we live our life true and strong we will think of you old friend.” – Clinton Belcher

Our Corporate Social Responsibility - CES Gives Back!

CES has provided over $100K in funding for Indigenous Communities to develop tourism across Canada

CES has over 19 years of experience working with Indigenous communities across Canada and abroad on grassroots community-based projects. Our team shares a passion for helping communities move forward with various projects and we offer a variety of different programs where we donate in kind services to help bring projects to life. We tend to operate more as a social enterprise than a profit driven business. We value the relationships with each and everyone of our clients which sets us apart from your typical consultant.

We thought we would share some of the results of our past programs and initiatives that we have done in the past and the communities that we helped along the way. All in all we have contributed through our Corporate Social Responsibility over $100K to 33 communities across Canada. Here are just a few of the programs and the impact that they have had on communities in Canada.

The Community Needs Assessment Program (CNAP)

This program is perfect for those communities interested in defining their potential for viable tourism businesses in their community. It includes all costs covered for an on-site visit to the community where someone from our team will assess the tourism potential of the community and will meet with leadership to exchange ideas and discuss options for moving forward. We then prepare a brief ‘go forward/next steps’ strategy as well as provide options for funding to move projects forward. This has been a successful project and we have visited 8 communities across Canada over the past 4 years. Some of the recent communities that have been approved for this program and have moved forward with tourism initiatives are:

• Seine River First Nation
• Kitselas First Nation
• Six Nations Tourism
• Magnetawan First Nation
• Georgina Island First Nation
• Wikwemikong First Nation
• Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point
• Tulita Development Corporation

The Cultural Preservation Initiative (CPI)

This program provides up to $10,000 in funding towards the development costs of the My Community App Project. The My Community App project shares the spirit and identity of your community using digital storytelling on an engaging interactive App. It uses videos, images, maps, and written stories that share the culture and history of your community told by the community. We provide the training, the resources and the knowledge for this project and it is meant to be grown and added to for years to come. We target the Youth, the Elders and everyone in between to contribute to this exciting project. We have now implemented projects across Canada in Georgina Island First Nation, Seine River First Nation, Moose Cree First Nation, Chesterfield Inlet, West Moberly First Nation, and Kitselas First Nation. Here’s what Web Bennet from Kitselas First Nation had to say about this exciting project -  http://youtu.be/JwvRv7v2HhA.

Tourism Feasibility Study Program

Throughout the years we continue to adapt our programs and have determined that Feasibility Studies are great ways to kick start tourism initiatives in order to determine if they are viable options for a community.  We wanted to work with communities to ensure a project is feasible before investing a great amount of resources into concepts.  So in the Fall of 2015 we started the Tourism Feasibility Study Program that provides up to $5,000 in funding for professional fees towards the costs of developing a Feasibility Study. So far we have 2 successful Clients that are moving forward with their projects. Due to the need and success of this program we decided to implement it again in 2016 and are now accepting applications for it. For more info please contact info@cesclients.com.

In addition to our funding programs we offer a variety of complimentary services to our Clients such as Free Webinars and Proposal Writing.

To stay informed about our new programs and funding programs follow us our social media sites:

• CES Blog - http://cesclients.blogspot.com
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cesclients
• Twitter - @ces_clients
• Google + - https://plus.google.com/115431186891854071376
• Or visit us at www.cesclients.com.