(Posted 3:30 a.m., Oct. 29)
Orleans Bengals mentor receives Mayor's City Builder Award
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Aldège Bellefeuille is presented with the Mayor's Community Builders Award by his worship Mayor Jm Watson. Photo supplied

Aldège Bellefeuille lives, breaths and bleeds Orleans Bengals black and orange.

A communications strategist with Health Canada by day, he's volunteered more than 1,000 hours to the minor football club during the evenings and weekends as a coach and mentor to the Bengals players.

His dedication to the Bengals organization has extended beyond coaching to fundraising, safe-contact training for coaches, and helping players access academic advancement opportunities in the form of athletic scholarships.

But Bellefeuilles' proudest accomplishment has been in securing sustainable funding for the Bengals' award-winning "Be A Bengal, Not A Bully" program.

The program helps participants identify and recognize risk factors like social isolation, financial barriers or having friends who bully, and teaches them how to avoid being a bully.

For his volunteer contributions to the Bengals football club and its players, Bellefeuille was presented with the Mayor's Community Builders Award before Wednesday's city council meeting.

Bellefeuille was nominated for the award by "Be A Bengal, Not A Bully" director Tammy Copp.

"Aldège’s commitment to service delivery is truly excellent as are his results. Aldège provides as much attention to the small, day to day details (i.e. smiling warmly and greeting everyone by their first name) as he does to the large scale initiatives that shape our community," Copp wrote in her nomination letter.

"Although excellence in service delivery is most commonly understood to be that friendly face that greets you at the field, there is a level of behind the scenes service delivery that is just as important. Aldège understands the safety imperatives behind annual helmet certifications, inventory updates to ensure unsafe equipment is serviced or removed from circulation and long before amateur football made it a requirement; Aldège was raising funds to ensure coaches were receiving safe contact training."

Bellefeuille comes by his love of football naturally. His brother Michel Bellefeuille was the former head coach of the Hamilton Ticats and is the current offensive coordinator of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Aldège will be pacing the sidelines this Saturday as the Orleans Bengals mosquito team goes for the NCAFA B-Cup championship.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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