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OUR HOMETOWN: Helping is what this Williams Lake local does

Andrea Moe is happy to do what she can for the community
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Andrea Moe is a very generous spirit and has touched a lot of lives with her kindness. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)

Upon meeting Andrea Moe, you might feel instantly like you’ve met a new friend, with her open manner and easy conversation.

She is generous and friendly, just like the things she appreciates about Williams Lake.

Moe struggles to put into words why she loves the town where she was born and is raising her own family but instead she describes the way people here lend a hand whenever it is needed.

Of her own offer to make supper for a man’s family after she met him in a pharmacy lineup, she says: “That’s just helping, that’s just what we do.”

A man had been waiting to pick up a prescription for his sick wife who had cancer and an autoimmune issue, all things she learned while just chatting with him as they waited.

Moe asked him if it would help if she made the family dinner and he gratefully accepted. She continued to take his family a meal every Thursday for months.

“There’s so many people in my life who’ve had cancer,” confessed Moe, who has also helped out other friends and their families facing cancer diagnoses.

But she doesn’t see it as volunteering, just lending a hand.

“I think that’s why we’re here. One day we’ll need that.”

While Moe is humble about her generous nature, she says she grew up with her mom, Rhonda Labelle, always giving as well.

“If there was ever anything that someone needs and you can do it, you do it.”

With three kids, you might wonder where she finds the time to have a full time job and also volunteer to help other families in need.

“There’s not very many weekends that we have at home,” she admits.

Yet somehow her list continues, as she details how she supports her three active children, each one with his or her own passion.

Her eldest daughter, Dallas, loves music, the middle child, Carly, loves horses and competes in Little Britches Rodeo and her son Lorne is a member of what was the Total Ice Titans, now the North Stars Hockey Academy.

Moe and her husband Jerad support the pursuits of all three, but Andrea claims she shares none of these passions and is even afraid of horses.

But she bravely learned to pull a horse trailer and drove it to a competition on her own for the first time recently, even though she has to rely on others to help out her daughter if she needs it with anything to do with the horse itself.

She said volunteering in other capacities for her children’s pastimes is the least she can do when she relies on coaches and music teachers and horse people.

“My kids wouldn’t be where they are without volunteers, people helping.”

Moe also helps manage her son’s hockey team with her friend Leslie Rowse, planning and cooking meals for the team while they are on the road, and much more.

“When you’re there, it’s kind of like a team mom,” she said, describing having up to 17 young hockey players in her hotel room at 6:30 a.m. to have breakfast.

“We’re pretty lucky though, it’s such a great group.”

All this plus her full time job with the Central Interior Rural Division of Family Practice working on recruiting locum physicians, supporting integration into the community, helping with things the families need.

In her spare time, she runs half marathons, even finishing her latest two weeks after having Covid-19.

“I wanted to quit multiple times,” admitted Moe, who managed it despite still feeling the lingering effects of her illness.

Read more: OUR HOMETOWN: Williams Lake teacher loves the outdoors for herself and her students

Read more: OUR HOMETOWN: From an orphan to a physiotherapist in Williams Lake



ruth.lloyd@wltribune.com

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Ruth Lloyd

About the Author: Ruth Lloyd

After moving back to Williams Lake, where I was born and graduated from school, I joined the amazing team at the Williams Lake Tribune in 2021.
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