By Nancy Dorrance
with photography by Ian MacAlpine
The philosophy that would shape Brenda Moore’s transformative career — both in teaching and community service — took root while she was still a student at Queen’s University’s Faculty of Education.
It didn’t blossom in a McArthur Hall classroom, however. Instead, Brenda’s inspiration sprang from summers spent working at a camp for children with learning disabilities.
“I’d grown up going to Girl Guide camps and loved spending time outdoors,” says the Kingston educator. “When I saw a flyer about Camp Towhee in Haliburton, it really appealed to me.” She worked first as a counsellor and then as program director, while completing her B.Ed. degree at Queen’s.
From her camp experience, Brenda learned that “kids with learning disabilities — and kids in general — arrive at school with all kinds of different needs and behaviours. The most important thing is to start where they are, and progress from there,” she says. “That idea carried me through my whole career.”
Born in Winnipeg, the middle daughter of Shirley and Glen Moore, Brenda spent her early summers with members of a large, extended family at her grandparents’ cottage in what is now Grand Beach Provincial Park. . . .
