Board and Leadership

Gerry Fowler (Chair)

Gerry is the owner of Manna International, the primary business of which is exporting soybeans from South Western Ontario to Europe. He is an elder at Bethel Bible Chapel in Sault St Marie, Ontario. He is married to Elizabeth and they have been blessed with three children and five grandchildren.

Paul Fletcher (Vice Chair)

Paul is currently serving as an interim pastor with Vision Ministries. Before this, he served as the Senior Pastor at Woodside Bible Fellowship Church. Apart from serving on the International Teams board, he also serves on the HCJB board, a large, global broadcasting and medical mission.

Barry King

Barry is a lawyer with River City Law Group in Edmonton Alberta. His experience in the practice of law is wide ranging, with an emphasis on commercial litigation, including bankruptcy and insolvency. As well, he has provided general counsel to a variety of charitable and commercial enterprises. He is a long standing resident of Sherwood Park AB where he lives with his wife Ruth and three daughters.

Faith Morphy (Finance Committee Chair)

Faith is the Owner/Operator of Young Drivers of Canada. She is a member at Waterloo MB church in Waterloo, Ontario. Faith is married to Ray and they have two children.

Stuart Thomson (Finance Committee Member)

Stuart is an independent financial planner living in Kitchener, Ontario. He has a B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from McMaster University. Stuart and his wife Debra are members of Grandview Baptist Church. They have two daughters.

Karen Toews

Karen is a project manager with an oil and gas background.  She is a native Calgarian and a long standing member of the Careforce board.  She has led or served on many short-term teams and met her husband, Patrick, on a Careforce team to the Dominican Republic.  She and Patrick are happily involved in First Alliance Church.

Stephen Tulloch (Finance Committee Member)

Steve is the ‘Community Care Director’ at Elevation in Waterloo, Ontario. He has a BA from Laurentian University and a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary. Now that Steve and Deb’s 5 kids have scattered, they have turned their empty nest into ‘The Branches’, a ‘community of hospitality in Uptown Waterloo’.

Neil Ostrander (CEO)

Neil Ostrander focuses his twenty plus years of non-profit management experience on building sustainable, community development projects in the developing world. His passion to ‘bring good news to the poor’ is matched by his team building approach and desire to inspire others to join the cause.

As a new member of the Careforce leadership, Neil says, “I love the mission of Carefore and I love to challenge people to ‘Care enough to do something…’”

Neil resides in Elmira, Ontario and is married to Yvonne (1982) and they have raised two wonderful boys, Michael (1985) and Brett (1988).

Phil Chester (Director of Programmes)

Phil is a leader respected within the not-for-profit world for developing and implementing highly successful relief and development programmes. He is an innovative agent for change and has an MBA in Strategic Management from the Sheffield University School of Management.

Phil lives in Mississauga Ontario and has been married to Sue for 30 years and they have two adult sons.

Jamie Sanfilippo (Director of Short Term Teams)

After spending five years as Programming Pastor at The Meeting House Oakville, Jamie and his family moved to rural Zambia to work in partnership with The Meeting House and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), where they planned and hosted short-term learning teams throughout Southern Africa, focusing primarily on MCC’s HIV/AIDS related work.

Short-term ministry has been one of the mainstays of Jamie’s life, having served on teams in Mexico, Thailand, Honduras, Africa, and Northern Europe. Jamie’s deep passion for short-term service comes from his numerous points of contact with various cultures, seeing first hand the transformative impact that cross-cultural service and learning has on both the team participants and the local country nationals.

Kellie Allen

While studying English at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON, Kellie joined Careforce on a co-op term to lead teams to First Nation communities across Canada’s north and found her calling! Although she’s worn many hats over the years, she most enjoys raising up leaders to work alongside youth in vulnerable communities. In addition, team experiences provide an avenue to travel, learn and use her gifts, while also meeting new friends both here and around the world. She has led over 40 short term teams to our each of our 6 projects to do a variety of volunteer work, all focused on children and youth, and raised up a network of volunteers to do the same. She’s a big kid at heart and loves being married to Imbert (10 years) with 2 young kids of their own.

In 2012, Kellie is on a maternity leave, but after 12 years with us, she says, “I’m never really going away.”