Welcome to PEI’s Catholic Women’s League Website

We are having a Membership Contest for 2025! Please see attached poster for all the details!

It is not too late to start planning a Membership Campaign/Drive to promote the League to recruit new members and collect dues for 2025 from current members. Maybe set up an information table at the back of the Church and share your excitement with newcomers!

As National Vice President, Betty Colaneri, in Communiqué #11 says, one way to recruit new members is to promote the “1” Campaign to “Recruit, Retain and Regain” the League’s membership. It is up to us as members to extend our hands and open our hearts to the wonderful women of our parishes and warmly invite them to join our organization that provides faith, fun and fulfilment. Invite them to come and see what we are all about. Show them how they too can be the change they want to see.

To attract new members and retain members, we need to: be upbeat, enthusiastic, positive and most of all joyful! If each member invited ‘1’, just ‘1’ woman to join us, we would double our membership. It all begins with ‘1’ to make a difference working together for God and Canada!

Please reach out if you have any questions or need any assistance with Membership.

Blessings,
Cheryl Boom, Vice President
PEI Provincial Council

Sisters in the League,

National Vice-President, Betty Colaneri, has introduced The “1” Campaign to promote the League and address the ongoing concern of declining membership. The purpose of the campaign is to:

Recruit: Encourage members to invite women in their parish and community to join the League.

Retain: Show gratitude and appreciation to current members.

Regain: Welcome members or councils back to the sisterhood.

Please share the catchphrase with your members to use as a marketing tool.

Join us in promoting and participating in The “1” Campaign. All it takes is “1” step in the right direction and “1” member to make a difference. Join in the excitement of this campaign that seeks to welcome new members, appreciate present members and welcome back returning members! As it is in all things, it begins with “1”!

January: Happy ‘1’ New Member!
Why not start the New Year by inviting ‘1’ new member to join you at a meeting?
We all make New Year’s resolutions, so why not make this one of them? Please ask your diocesan
counterparts to encourage members to reach out to a woman in their parish or community.

About PEI CWL

The Catholic Women’s League on Prince Edward Island consists of 27 councils representing approximately 1350 members. This membership is part of a National membership of over 63,000 members all working “For God and Canada.”

The first council to be organized on PEI was the Charlottetown Council (then called sub-division) in the summer of 1921 with 107 charter members. From this early beginning, interest in this organization of Catholic women blossomed into what it is today.

Our National Theme is Here I am Lord, send me.” which is lived out on Prince Edward Island.

PRESIDENT’S PROFILE

Karen Rossiter
Prince Edward Island Provincial President

I am honoured to have been elected as your Provincial President for the years 2023-2025. As we transition into our new structure, we reflect on the previous structure and contemplate what the future has in store for us all. We can take solace in knowing we are not alone and that the Holy Spirit is with us guiding us along our journey. What Pope Francis said in his homily of hope on Friday, March 27, 2020, still holds true to us, “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disorientated, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”

I was born and raised in the small community of Selkirk, PEI and graduated from Souris Regional High School. I graduated with honors from the Tourism and Hospitality Program at the Atlantic Travel and Hospitality Institute as a travel agent in 1995. I have had a few careers, including spending several years in Japan teaching English and studying martial arts in the early 90’s. Then after 9/11, I found myself needing a new career. It was then that I decided on nursing and graduated from Holland College’s Diploma program in Practical Nursing in 2003.

I have been a CWL Member for 11 years at St. Peter Parish Council in St. Peters Bay and have held the positions of Secretary, President, and Past President for which I am still serving in that position.  I have been on the Provincial Council from 2014 to the present as Recording Secretary, President-Elect/Organization Chair and now Provincial President.

 I have had many meaningful experiences the past six years: accommodation chair for the 2017 National CWL Convention in PEI; member of the Working Group 3A- Misconception from 2018 to 2021; completion of the Catholic Women’s Leadership Foundation program from May 2021-2022; participant in the smartphone focus group and App discussion group for the Strategic Plan in 2022 and the completion of the four Seasons of Reconciliation Program online in January 2023. I engage in many parish activities in both my home parish of St. Peter’s Bay and my former parish of St. Charles. 

I have worked in acute care for Health PEI for the past 18 years, 4 years doing floor nursing, and 14 in the operating room, both at the QEH in Charlottetown. I have various instructor certificates including TLR trainer, and Heart and Stroke BLS Instructor Trainer. I currently hold certificates in and am active as a Heart and Stroke BLS Instructor and Heart and Stroke First Aid Instructor.

The National theme, “Catholic and Living It!”  announced by our National President Fran Lucas in January of 2022 continues until the end of this year. We continue building relationships while being ‘Catholic and Living It’ with the hope for stronger families, members, councils, parish communities, and beyond.

May Our Lady of Good Counsel guide us. God Bless you and your families.

PARISHES

All Saints, Cardigan
Corpus Christi, Glenwood
Holy Redeemer, Charlottetown
Immaculate Conception, Palmer Road
Our Lady of the Assumption, Stratford
Sacred Heart, Alberton
St. Anne’s, Emyvale
St. Anthony’s, Bloomfield
St. Columba, East Point
St. Cuthbert’s, St. Teresa’s
St. Dunstan’s Basilica, Charlottetown
St. Felix, Tignish
St. Francis of Assisi, Cornwall
St. Georges, St. Georges
St. Joachim’s, Vernon River
St. John the Baptist, Miscouche
St. Joseph’s, Kelly’s Cross
St. Malachy’s, Kinkora
St. Martin’s, Cumberland
St. Mary’s Holy Family, Kensington
St. Mary’s, Souris
St. Patrick’s, Ft. Augustus
St. Paul’s, Summerside
St. Peter’s, St. Peter’s Bay
St. Peter’s, Seven Mile Bay
St. Pius X, Charlottetown
St. Simon & St. Jude, Tignish