Two decades of community development. A working model for inclusive enterprise.

I'm Alison Ainsworth — a community builder, public relations strategist and inclusive business designer based in Parkland County, Alberta. I bring more than twenty years of strategic planning, communications, grant work and municipal development to a single question: how do we build economies that include the people they have historically left out — including youth under thirty and individuals with disabilities who face underemployment and narrow entry points into conventional work?

I work that question as a practitioner, not a theorist. I founded and operate Sweetfreeze, a micro mobile ice-cream business designed around my 24-year-old daughter Emily so she can connect with community on her terms while earning income and building belonging. Before that, I built Wags Cookies Ltd., a social-enterprise dog-cookie company that landed in the Official Grammy Award Gift Bags in 2021 while changing the conversation on inclusive employment.

Every venture starts the same way: with the person, with their community, with a real market need, and with the partnerships that make a small, good business possible. The method is repeatable across ages and contexts — whether the operator is a young adult navigating underemployment or an individual with a disability seeking an alternative to placement programs. The returns — for individuals, families, agencies and local economies — are measurable. That is the work I'm hired to do.