Pierre Allard nets top volunteer award

Lloyd Mackey
Special to ChristianWeek

OTTAWA, ON-Pierre Allard, a long time leader in the prison chaplaincy field, is the recipient of the 2004 Maud Booth Award from Volunteers of America (VOA), a major faith-based social service group.

Ottawa-based Allard is assistant commissioner for community engagement at Correctional Services of Canada (CSC), the agency responsible for federal prisons and corrections.

In that role, as well as in his previous decade as chaplain-general of the CSC, he has majored in community-based corrections leadership and advocacy for restorative justice.

The Booth Award is the latest in a string of honours accorded Allard in the past five years.

In accepting these honours, he invariably credits "my wife, Judy, my colleagues and offenders with whom I have journeyed."

Allard’s wife has been pivotal in his ministry. He began his career as a Catholic priest and later met Judy at Laval University. When they decided to marry, he retained his sense of call to ministry. Educated in Catholic and evangelical seminaries, Allard was Baptist-ordained after leaving the priesthood. He has continued to be mentored by a Catholic spiritual director.

An increasing amount of the Allard’s "leisure" time involves heading up the International Prison Chaplain’s Association, which will hold its next conference in August, 2005, in Cornwall, Ontario.