27 June 2021, Calgary – Philippine Consul General Zaldy Patron praised Filipino-Canadian Marichu Antonio for being named as the recipient of the 2020 Calgary Award: Citizen of the Year Award given by the City of Calgary on 21 June 2021.

The Calgary’s Citizen of the Year Award was established in 1994 to celebrate and recognize exceptional achievements and contributions made by Calgarians.

The 2020 Citizen of the Year Award, under the Community Achievement Awards category of the Calgary Awards, is given to an outstanding individual Calgarian who, within the last five years, has made extraordinary contributions to the community, as a volunteer and/or professional, that improved the quality of life in Calgary or brought recognition to Calgary.

On the day the City of Calgary made the announcement about Ms. Antonio’s award, Consul General Patron called her by phone to personally congratulate her. On 25 June 2021, Consul General Patron and his wife, Sheila, hosted Ms. Antonio and her husband Cesar Cala to a dinner to honor her for her achievement.

“I am extremely proud of Ms. Marichu Antonio as she made history for becoming the first Filipino Canadian and the first woman of color to receive the Calgary’s Citizen of the Year Award since the award’s establishment 27 years ago.  This is a big honor for our large Filipino community in Calgary.  I am certain that her remarkable achievement will inspire our fellow Filipinos in Canada to excel in their advocacies and professions,” Consul General Patron said about Ms. Antonio’s feat.

Based on the 2016 Canada Census, Calgary hosts about 75,000 Filipinos out of the city’s total population of about 1.4 million people.

Ms. Antonio, who was born in Manila, came to Canada in 1994 and worked as Community Development Manager at the Centre for Newcomers in Calgary for 13 years. She is also a recipient of the 2012 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and Avenue Magazine’s A-List of Volunteers in 2009 in recognition of her contributions towards strengthening communities.

Ms. Antonio is due to retire this month as the Executive Director of ActionDignity, a community-based organization that promotes full civic participation and integration of ethnocultural communities in Alberta. 

During the pandemic, Ms. Antonio quickly shifted ActionDignity’s focus to emergency support to Calgarians including essential workers in Cargill and JBS meat plants.

She co-founded the Multilingual Emergency Response Centre (MERC) Hotline in response to COVID-19 and sits as a key player in the Calgary East Zone Newcomers Collaborative (CENC). Offering support in 24 languages, CENC served 12,400 COVID-impacted Calgarians with food, financial and mental health supports as they healed with dignity.