“People want to leave a legacy. They want to feel like they made a difference while they were here.”

When Robin Robertson and her husband, John, moved to Penticton from Calgary 18 years ago, they expected to stay for only three. The move was partly about beginning a new chapter, but for Robin, it was also about giving back.

“We actually moved to Penticton so that I could ‘be in service,’” she says. “I always said that at the end of my career, I would give back to a nonprofit.”

That commitment has shaped much of Robin’s life in the South Okanagan, starting with her role as Operations Director at the Naramata Centre. A longtime volunteer with extensive board experience, she served on the Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen’s (CFSOS) Board of Directors for 11 years, including three years as President.

Her connection to community is also reflected in her art.

Robin had been a potter earlier in life, but a busy career and running her own consulting business took her in another direction for many years. After moving to Penticton, she returned to art, taking up painting during a period of burnout.

It became both a creative outlet and a way to slow down.

Nature is a recurring presence in her art, and Robin jokes that a bird often finds its way into her work. Robin also finds the creative process introspective, connecting her with her grandmother, a talented artist with whom she was very close.

Finding a place at the Foundation

Robin’s interest in community foundations began long before she joined CFSOS. Through her consulting work in Calgary, she had the opportunity to work with Kahanoff Foundation, a family-owned foundation, and was struck by what philanthropy could make possible.

“I was so impressed by what they were doing. I remember thinking after I did that work, someday I’m going to either work in a foundation, be part of a foundation, whatever.”

Years later in Penticton, she learned that someone she knew, Tom Kampman, was on the Community Foundation’s Board.

“I just said, ‘Tom, I want to be on that board!’”

She stayed for 11 years.

Looking back, Robin is especially proud of moments when the Foundation was willing to think differently about how it could serve the region. One was the decision to support the Youth Centre, which came after several years of discussion. “It was a real changing point for the Foundation in the sense of being willing to take risks and do things differently from your typical kind of foundation,” Robin says.

She is also proud of helping develop a strategic plan that continues to inform the Foundation’s work today. The Board also spent several years learning more about different areas of need and gaps in the nonprofit sector, eventually choosing food security as a multi-year impact focus.

For Robin, who has always valued measuring results, seeing progress in areas such as food security and youth wellness has been particularly meaningful.

Leadership was not a role she initially sought. In fact, Robin had said she would never become President. But when the time came to step forward, she did. She served for three years and discovered she loved it.

“I enjoyed every minute of it,” she says. “I loved representing the Foundation out in the community, being even closer to the work, and bouncing ideas back and forth with CEO Aaron McRann. I took a lot of pride in the role.”

Giving together

Robin has also been part of 100 Women Who Care since it began in 2014 as a program of the Community Foundation. The group brings women together four times a year to hear from local charities and non-profits and collectively decide where their contributions will go.

For Robin, its appeal has always been about more than giving. It is also a way to discover the people and organizations doing good work close to home.

Today, 100 Women Who Care has 114 active members and has distributed more than $220,000 to over 70 local organizations.

Robin is particularly encouraged by the younger women who have become involved.

“That 30 to 50-year-old crowd turnout is so good in this community,” she says. “They’re supporting it in a big way.”

A legacy through art

Robin’s passion for public art began taking shape in Calgary, where she helped start four public art projects in her community. After moving to Penticton, that passion found a new home.

She became involved with the City of Penticton’s arts and culture advisory committee and began advocating for a sculpture program. She developed a proposal, helped build support for the idea and, once funding was finally secured, became closely involved during the program’s early years, including helping select and install sculptures and leading sculpture walks.

“Public art completely democratizes art,” says Robin. Art can be intimidating. Some people don’t want to go into a gallery; that isn’t how they want to spend their time. And yet if they’re out in their normal day and they run into a sculpture, they’ll talk to a stranger, they’ll discuss it on the street. It changes the way they look at the community.”

For Robin, public art adds another dimension to what already makes Penticton a special place to live and visit.

“People want to visit Penticton because it’s beautiful and we can enhance that through art.”

Her belief in the power of public art eventually inspired her to establish the Penticton Public Art Fund with the Community Foundation, which is open to anyone wishing to contribute. Her dream is that the fund will one day support the commissioning of a sculpture by a local artist each year.

For Robin, the fund is also about something bigger: leaving something behind that can continue contributing to the community long into the future.

She compares it to planting a tree you may never get to sit beneath.

“People want to leave a legacy,” she says. “They want to feel like they made a difference while they were here.”

For someone whose life in the South Okanagan began with a desire to be of service, that feels especially fitting.