{"id":75707,"date":"2022-03-01T10:58:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T15:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/?p=75707"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:40:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:40:40","slug":"celebrating-bgc-black-leaders-meet-chester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/celebrating-bgc-black-leaders-meet-chester\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating BGC Black Leaders \u2013 Meet Chester"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/chester-headshot.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">As Executive Director of BGC Cape Breton, Chester has been working hard to make sure the Whitney Pier Club continues to <\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">run smoothly<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> throughout the pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cMy phone never stops ringing. But I love my job and not a lot of people can say that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"TextRun SCXW213971438 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-GB\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\" data-contrast=\"none\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW213971438 BCX0\">Born and raised in Whitney Pier, Chester attended the United Missions youth club where Jonathan Skeete, Nova Scotia\u2019s first African Nova Scotian RCMP officer, was his youth worker\u2014an experience that inspired 40+ years of working with young people. Throughout that time, Chester has been an inspiration for others, including being the first African Nova Scotian hired by the Cape Breton Regional School Board and one of the first <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW213971438 BCX0\">African Nova <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW213971438 BCX0\">Scotians<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW213971438 BCX0\"> to volunteer with Children\u2019s Aid as a mentor, foster parent, and respite parent.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">His mission has continued at BGC Cape Breton over the last 17 years.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cI treat these kids like they\u2019re my own, I\u2019m very protective of them. Our slogan with BGC Canada is opportunity changes everything and that\u2019s what I try to give to these kids here. We\u2019re very proud that we have five or six kids who are on postsecondary scholarships. Education is the key to a better future for a lot of these kids.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/bgccapebreton.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Chester wants to expand his BGC\u00a0Club so that services can be offered to more kids\u2014the Club currently has a lengthy waitlist of youth waiting to join.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Until then, he plans to keep doing what he and his Club do best\u2014providing opportunities for youth and helping them overcome the barriers they face.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cThe best leader is one who helps people so eventually they don\u2019t need him. That is my philosophy as a youth worker.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"vimeo-player\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/683450916?h=38a4f9ea75\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Executive Director of BGC Cape Breton, Chester has been working hard to make sure the Whitney Pier Club continues to run smoothly throughout the pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMy phone never stops ringing. But I love my job and not a lot of people can say that.\u201d Born and raised in Whitney Pier, Chester attended the United [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[866,89,848,75,145],"class_list":["post-75707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bgc-news","tag-bgc-cape-breton","tag-bgc-clubs","tag-celebrating-bgc-black-leaders","tag-opportunity-changes-everything","tag-youth"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}