Meet the Team
Directors
Harold Munro
Harold Munro is the Editor-in-Chief of the Vancouver Sun and chair of the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund Society.
He started his career at The Sun in 1986 as a sports reporter before becoming a local news reporter a year later. In subsequent years his beats included Metro Vancouver transportation and regional affairs. He held several other positions, including City Editor and Chief News Editor, before being appointed Editor-in-Chief in 2012. He assumed responsibility as Editor-in-Chief of The Province in 2016.
Harold is a long-time Surrey resident where he lives with his family.
Gillian Shaw
Gillian Shaw is vice-chair of The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund and one of the co-founders of Adopt-a-School, an initiative launched by journalists at The Vancouver Sun to help our community’s most impoverished children.
Gillian worked as a journalist at The Vancouver Sun and the Postmedia Network, joining the Sun in 1980 as a general assignment reporter, and winning a National Newspaper Award and a Webster Award as part of the Vancouver Sun’s team. She served in the Sun’s Victoria bureau reporting on provincial politics before being appointed as the Sun’s business editor, and as the Digital Life Writer for the Vancouver Sun and Postmedia, Gillian’s work focused on technology issues, and trends online and off.
She is also on the board of the Jack Webster Foundation, and has served as a Director of the Canadian Ski Instructors’ Association British Columbia. She earned her BA at Brock University and Bachelor of Journalism Honours at Carleton University.
Wendy Porter
Wendy Porter holds the position of Treasurer on the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund Society’s board of directors. She has worked with public and private companies as an independent board member and committee chair.
Wendy leverages her experience as President of an entrepreneurial turnaround, senior vice president in a major financial institution, and mergers and aquisitions architect, along with her Director roles on the multiple, very different Boards on which she has served, to support the goals of Adopt-a-School.
At the Bank of Montreal she held roles as: VP Corporate Marketing, responsible for the bank’s corporate marketing strategy; VP Systems Services; and SVP Merchant Services. As Co-Founder of Moneris Solutions, she changed the landscape for payment processing in Canada by merging the Royal Bank’s and Bank of Montreal’s payment processing businesses. As President of Vital Merchant Services, she turned around a floundering payments company.
Wendy has an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and has an ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Valerie Casselton
Valerie Casselton is the former managing editor and executive editor of The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers. A journalist for 40 years, she worked at four daily newspapers across Canada as well as three television networks after first earning degrees from the UBC and Carleton University.
A long-time community volunteer, Valerie has served on numerous boards including the UBC Alumni Association Board, Pacific Press Credit Union Board, the Women’s Leadership Council of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, and the boards of several journalism associations or schools, in addition to a number of community boards.
Before joining the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund board in 2021, Valerie volunteered for years with numerous organizations for children, youth and young adults including Junior Achievement of B.C., the UBC Tri-Mentoring program, the Minerva Foundation, the West Vancouver Youth Band, and Girl Guides of Canada.
Through her work with the Adopt a School program of the VSCF, Valerie continues her commitment to community and advancing the health and wellbeing of our children and youth. She believes that only with a strong start in life and supported at all stages of their development can our children thrive, realize their potential and meet the future with confidence and success.
Lori Fralic
Lori Fralic spent 20 years working in marketing and as a design and real estate writer for The Vancouver Sun and Province before becoming a licensed realtor in 2018, where she is now among the top in her industry as a member of the Medallion President’s Club. Born and raised in New Westminster, she is passionate about her community and supporting local initiatives.
Lori is a board member of Heritage New Westminster , believes in the preservation of our built-heritage and spent years restoring her own circa-1910 home in New Westminster. She is the daughter-in-law of late Vancouver Sun columnist Shelley Fralic — a staunch advocate for children in need, a longtime director of The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund and one of the founders of the Adopt-a-School program.
Lori continues to honour Shelley’s legacy as a champion for impoverished children and families. Lori has been a director of the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund since 2022.
Faye Wightman
Faye Wightman began her career as a cardiac nurse before spending the majority of her professional life in the charitable sector in leadership roles with the Canadian Red Cross, United Way of the Lower Mainland, BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, the University of Victoria and president and CEO of Vancouver Foundation and on various non-profit boards.
Now retired, Faye joined the board in the fall of 2024, an organization that she says speaks to her first love — children. Knowing the difference that the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund makes by providing children across British Columbia with such basic necessities as food and clothing, Faye said she wanted to be a part of what she describes as “such an amazing, worthy organization.”
“The stories are so impactful and it breaks my heart that there are children going to school hungry and cold. I want to make a difference in their lives in whatever way I can.”
Support Team
Michelle Roebuck
Michelle joined VSCF as the Fund Administrator in late 2019, having moved to the Vancouver after spending 20+ years in England working as a freelance bookkeeper / administrator for a number of small companies. These ranged from graphic design studios to part-time performing arts schools, clothing manufacturers, business consultancies, software developers and marketing agencies. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario and obtained a BA from the University of Toronto.
Gerry Bellett
Gerry writes the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund stories that appear in the Vancouver Sun. An award-winning journalist with the paper since 1976, his career has spanned news, feature writing, and assignments in the Ottawa and Victoria bureaus. As a member of the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund charity, Gerry is the principal writer for the annual Adopt-a-School appeal.