Volunteers and Team Leaders are arguably the backbone of any organization. This especially holds true for Look Good Feel Better. Often the first point of contact for workshop participants, Look Good Feel Better volunteers have the unique ability to see the trees through the forest and ensure each person who enters leaves feeling better than when they walked in. Our dedicated Volunteers and Team Leaders are a key component of what makes our community so amazing.
One such Team Leader, Joan Michetti, adds insurmountable value for a lot of women & teens facing cancer: she helps to create a safe place to come and feel like yourself again. Joan has been a part of Look Good Feel Better since the start, when the organization was not yet what it is today, but rather an inkling of a great idea.
A community minded Montrealer, Joan was at a crossroads in her career 28 years ago when she joined. While she decided to switch gears from working full time to focusing more on her family, she was still eager to positively impact people’s lives and give back to her community. Joan has worn many hats throughout the years. From attending the official opening of the in-person workshops in 1992 at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, to creating step-by-step training video guides for other volunteers in 2002, to receiving the Governor General of Canada Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers award in 2018, Joan embodies compassion and joy.
In her 28-year long tenure, Joan’s dedication, and passion to give back has also been a point of connection for her loved ones as well. Most notably, it is the power of cosmetics and creative expression that has been a special way for her and her granddaughter, Lauren, to get closer. Inspired by her grandmother’s devotion to helping others, Lauren loves hearing her workshop stories and, “seeing that it makes her very happy to give back to the community by doing something she enjoys.”
Lauren has even designed guides for Look Good Feel Better, lending her artistic talent to influence the community further positively. Citing, “it’s important for both of us because we can have an impact as a team and we feel like we can make a difference.”
While Joan has many memorable moments over her time as a Team Leader, she notes one memorable moment when a participant came into a workshop quiet and reserved but left, “with a smile ear to ear” as most notable. What made it so memorable was hearing for a hospital employee afterwards that, “the woman had covered all the mirrors in her house with brown paper as to not see herself. She did not like the way she looked and could not recognize herself. After attending a workshop, I was told she went home and immediately removed all the mirror coverings. She was happy to see herself again.”
