Celebrating Emerging Heritage Leaders

Meet the inspiring recipients of the 2025 John Edwards Volunteer Bursary and Herb Stovel Scholarship! From community champions to future heritage professionals, these honourees are shaping the future of heritage across Canada.

2025 John Edwards Volunteer Bursary Awards

We are proud to announce the 2025 recipients of the John Edwards Volunteer Bursary from across Canada – spanning Oakville, Picton, Ottawa, Montreal, Fredericton, Trinity, Medicine Hat, Regina, and Edmonton – who represent a vibrant mix of heritage professionals, community leaders, artists, and advocates.

Honourees include leaders in heritage planning, museum stewardship, and Black and Asian Canadian heritage preservation. Among them a world-record-holding Masters athlete and the first Black solo exhibitor at New Brunswick’s Beaverbrook Gallery.

These individuals, from grassroots to municipal organizations, exemplify dedication to storytelling, inclusion, and the protection of Canada’s diverse cultural heritage and we look forward to welcoming them all to the Trust’s 2025 Annual Conference taking place from October 23-25 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A total of 13 awards were issued this year, and we remain deeply grateful to Helen Edwards for her generosity in preserving the memory and legacy of her beloved husband, John Edwards.

You can view the full list of awardee profiles here: Bursary Recipients – National Trust for Canada

2025 Herb Stovel Scholarship Awards

We’re pleased to announce the 2025 Herb Stovel Scholarship recipients: two for research and two for conference participation. This year’s awardees hail from Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, representing McGill University, the University of Toronto, and Holland College.

The research bursaries support doctoral fieldwork on cultural institutions post-disaster and the hands-on study of traditional stained-glass techniques in Italy.

The conference bursaries were awarded to a Red Seal heritage carpenter preserving PEI’s built heritage and a civil engineering master’s student with research interests in heritage masonry. These emerging professionals demonstrate the vital intersection of academic research, traditional/heritage trades, and heritage conservation practice.

Our thanks to the Stovel family for their continued support of emerging professionals in the field of Heritage Conservation.

You can view the full list of the recipient’s profiles here: Herb Stovel Scholarship Recipients – National Trust for Canada