Lorrey Arial Bonilla has been employed with the Early Childhood Community Development Centre since 1996 and has over 20 years experience working in the public and volunteer sectors both in education and early learning and child care services including; working with children in primary and junior years, supporting children with special needs and designing and delivering a variety of programs and services for children and families. Lorrey’s current position of Training and Resource Manager sees her leading the continued growth and development of the ECCDC’s member services, resource lending library and the organizations’ professional development services and special events.
Lorrey has found each year to be professionally gratifying but is most proud of the growth of the organization’s training services. Working closely with community partners, Lorrey and her team have an intimate knowledge of the professional development needs of Niagara’s early learning and child care community. Using this knowledge, Lorrey works with consultants from across Ontario and the country to coordinate unique, specialized, affordable training sessions, workshops and networking events for the early learning and education industry. She also publishes esteem, the ECCDC’s quarterly training magazine.
Within her resource services portfolio, Lorrey has spearheaded the design of ECCDC’s playbased learning kits which provide curriculum materials for early learning and kindergarten environments. Each year, Lorrey and her team review hundreds of new learning resources and purchase the ones that are best suited for circulation through the ECCDC’s resource lending library, and helps educators across Niagara use these materials to create exciting early learning environments and curriculum plans for young children. Lorrey has secured various grants to support the acquisition of these resources including a recent Trillium Foundation grant for the design of numeracy kits to foster children’s understanding of early math concepts in Niagara’s child care programs.
Lorrey’s outstanding organizational, managerial and relationship-building skills are also evident in the continued growth and popularity of the annual Niagara Early Childhood Educators Awards of Excellence Celebration. Now the largest event of its kind in the country, the Awards of Excellence ceremony attracts over 300 guests each year, dozens of business sponsors and donors, and considerable local media attention. The event has even been featured in Interaction and Childcare Today magazines.
In addition to the Awards of Excellence, Lorrey has coordinated and managed a wide variety of conferences and events for clients in the early learning and child care industry. Some of these projects include the Regional Niagara Public Health Department’s Roots of Empathy Conference, the 2008 Quality Child Care Niagara Conference and the more recent Joining Our Voices: Parent Engagement in the Early Years, a collaborative learning seminar for educators and parents planned in partnership with the District School Board of Niagara and the Niagara Catholic District School Board. Lorrey has also contributed to the success of many other initiatives within Niagara’s early learning and education community. She participated on the JK/SK 2010 Early Learning and Training Task Group and was a contributing author to the report: Educators Children Deserve.
Lorrey is an Ontario Certified Teacher and received her honours Bachelor of Arts degree in child studies and psychology in 1995 and a Bachelor of Education degree in Primary/Junior Education in 1996 from Brock University. She is a member of the Ontario College of Teachers and the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario and is committed to ongoing professional development, networking and committee participation. Lorrey is known as a respected and dynamic member of the ECCDC team and excels in project management, systems development and event coordination and has a unique ability to recruit and motivate volunteers and staff. In her spare time, Lorrey receives weekly French tutoring, has been a long time volunteer in her community and is an avid traveler.