Lifelong friends help Regina community while empowering, mentoring women

CBC is celebrating the province’s new generation of leaders, success stories and change-makers under the age of 40. The 2024 Future 40 winners come from all walks of life, backgrounds and industries. 

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When Talitha McCloskey, 34, and Skylar Gerard, 35, became friends in high school, they realized they had a lot of values and personality traits in common. It didn’t take them long to see that their shared outlook on life came from their mothers.

“What really bonded us together was this … shared perspective that we weren’t afraid to speak up. We weren’t afraid to ask questions. We weren’t afraid to challenge the norm. And what we boiled that down to was our moms,” said Gerard.

McCloskey’s mother Marlene Smadu and Gerard’s mother Gwen Keith have been a constant source of inspiration for the friends. 

“We had these two strong female built-in mentors in our lives and realized pretty quickly in our careers, later on after high school, that not a lot of women had that. Whether it was in their family or outside in their careers or in the community, women were having a hard time finding other female mentors,” said Gerard.

In 2019, McCloskey and Gerard joined forces with their mothers to found RaiseHER Co. — a Regina-based leadership skills development and advocacy organization for women, girls and gender nonconforming individuals. And Smadu and Keith continue to provide mentorship through RaiseHER.

“We wanted to make finding a female mentor, building those leadership skills more accessible to all women from all career levels, from all backgrounds, all walks of life. Because everyone deserves to be a leader and everyone deserves to find a mentor,” said Gerard.

Over the five years since founding the organization, the two women have become mothers themselves. Despite their day jobs, community involvement and parenting, the lifelong friends have worked hard to advance the inclusion and social development of women through RaiseHER.

We wanted to make finding a female mentor, building those leadership skills more accessible to all women from all career levels, from all backgrounds, all walks of life.– Skylar Gerard, RaiseHER Co-Founder

“We’ve had a lot of movement in our lives, but we keep coming back to RaiseHER because it’s our passion project and it’s something that we just pour our whole souls into. And we see the difference that it makes in the community,” McCloskey said.

RaiseHER is partly funded by Gerard and McCloskey themselves, through community fundraising events and through contracts with organizations throughout the Queen City. RaiseHER has helped raise money and co-hosted events with more than 40 local female-led organizations, and collaborated with more than 20 organizations in the city on projects. 

Gerard said a highlight of the work RaiseHER has done over the last five years is the ‘She’s Here’ mentorship program, in partnership with the University of Regina’s Champions of Change.

Gerard and McCloskey say they are very proud of the outcomes of the program, which marked its third year in 2024. There are 10 mentee-mentor pairings once a year between January and March. They say the aim of the program is to create positive change for women, girls and gender diverse people.

Some of the projects are as small as changing the gender boxes on an optometrist’s intake form — “making things more inclusive so that people don’t have to feel like they fit into a box,” Gerard said. 

The co-founder said the continued relationships that result from the mentorship program by RaiseHER and Champions of Change has been extremely rewarding.

We’ve had a lot of movement in our lives, but we keep coming back to RaiseHER because it’s our passion project and it’s something that we just pour our whole souls into. And we see the difference that it makes in the community.– Talitha McCloskey, RaiseHER Co-Founder

“The way that we see these young women show up, the way that we see these professionals, also women, being mentors and also learning so much from these young individuals, is so amazing. And honestly, the outcomes are out of this world and changing our community in significant ways,” Gerard said. 

The program has helped women going on maternity leave, and created opportunities for women coming back from maternity leave, so they feel like they can get back into work in a way that makes sense for them and their families, Gerard said.

There have also been events at the university on investment banking for women, and a community-based event focused on decolonizing and supporting artists and featuring their artwork — like spoken word, poetry and visual art — in a variety of ways.

Since 2019, the duo has won the National Philanthropy Award and the Lawney Donaldson Community Builder Award, to name a few. And in 2020, Lt.-Gov. Russel Mirasty and his wife Donna Mirasty designated the RaiseHER founders with honorary patronage — which represents the lieutenant governor’s formal support of the organization.

Meanwhile, both McCloskey and Gerard say heading up RaiseHER has impacted their parenting, and the way they view themselves as professionals. 

“I think we are just very intentional about showcasing that there’s more for our children, that there’s more to life than being a mom, that we have many roles and many hats,” said Gerard.

As 2024 CBC Saskatchewan Future 40 winners, the duo said they are just getting started. McCloskey and Gerard have “hopes and dreams” to expand RaiseHER’s reach beyond Regina, and continue to lift women up.