Christalee Froese of More Joy Movement speaks at Chamber meeting
June 29, 2026, 11:12 am
Ashley Bochek, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Christalee Froese of Montmarte and founder of the More Joy Movement visited Moosomin on Monday to speak at the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Froese is a mental health advocate and an author. She hosts the More Joy Event each year in Regina on Bell Let’s Talk Day.
“I began writing as an intern at the Moosomin World-Spectator. John Meen was the first newspaper guy, and he hired me when I first started at the World-Spectator. Bruce Penton was running it, and he taught me how to develop film. That was a long time ago, but here I am. One breakdown down, I’m now a mental health advocate.
“I’ve written two books. Everything I’ve ever learned about writing came from working at the paper in Moosomin because it was my first job, and I wrote my first column, and from then I learned you need to speak from your heart, nobody wants to read a textbook, nobody cares about the academic things I have to say, and from that time on, my writing was no longer academic. Moosomin taught me that you need to speak from your heart. So, that’s what I’m going to do today.
“I had a nervous breakdown in 2011 and I wrote this book, and so I appreciate all the mental health services and Envision has supported many of the people who have been part of the More Joy Movement or have been our speakers, it saves lives.”
Advocate for mental health
Froese works tirelessly to spread mental health awareness and to let everyone know they’re not alone.
“When I wrote this book, and I went to speak in rooms like this, everybody sat there and pretended everything was okay. Then after people would come to me, they’d grab my arm, they’d whisper, it was always a whisper, and it would be ‘do you have a number, my son or my daughter, or my wife needs to reach out to someone.’ Everyone has a story, we all are touched by mental health. I do a mental health presentation at Sask Polytech, and almost half of Canadian entrepreneurs are experiencing mental health challenges at this present time. This is a 2023 study by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Half, owing to stress over finances, so if you look at a lineup at Costco, every second person is suffering. There’s a lot of us. I want you to know that if you are suffering, you’re not alone.”
She explains, “When I wrote the first book, it was released in 2018 and it highlighted how I recovered from depression, and later a lady from Toronto phoned me, she had read it. She was the founder of Steeped Tea, Tonia Jahshan. She had been on the show Dragon’s Den, and she had won Entrepreneur of the Year in Toronto, and she phoned me, and said, I’m in the hospital—it’s universal. She was successful. There was an NHL goalie that I connected with, and we connect all the time. It doesn’t matter if you have money, if you have status—this is how I knew that a More Joy movement was needed.”
Froese read a piece from her second book, Permission Granted to be Joyful Again at the meeting.
“I don’t know how the movement came to be. All I know is that there was some great meditated pathway carved out by the universe that was laid at my feet to follow back to you guys. I knew something beyond my control and even beyond my knowledge was happening when I was asked to speak to bus loads of women in 2019—that book had just come out, and we used to have this thing called Women on Wheels, and we’d load up women in Regina, and we’d bring them to Carlyle. We’d end up in Carlyle at the Dickens Festival, and they’d shop in the dead of winter. A series of chartered busses called Women on Wheels would travel across the Prairies, transporting women throughout Saskatchewan to four small towns east of Regina.
“They’d stop in Kipling, there was the Red Paperclip House, and they’d have a cake, and so each year they would do it and that year it was my turn. I was to be the entertainment on these bus loads of a total of 350 women. I didn’t know what the response from these women would be, as I read as much from my book as I could and I told them my story, even on the night busses, and I would start to read from my book, they’d open their eyes, and one by one, they’d poke their groggy heads into the aisle to see who was so openly talking about the things we don’t talk about, I didn’t know if my message was resonating, but when those women got off that bus, what I saw was real and raw. Almost every single woman who left that bus gave me a hug that felt like a ‘you get it’ kind of hug, and that’s when I knew that only those who know hug you that way.”
Froese says the More Joy Movement will host their annual event in January 2027 with the night dedicated to youth.
“I knew that I was not alone struggling with mental health, and so we launched the More Joy Movement, and it launched itself. We host a big event on Bell Let’s Talk Day. We’ll have another one in January next year at the Conexus Centre in Regina, and it’s growing. We have all the mental health services in the province there, so when you leave, you can leave with a card and help. This next year it’s dedicated to youth.
“My second book just came out, and it’s called Permission Granted to Be Joyful Again. And this one is more of a how-to, because people often ask me, what did you do. So it has 24 concrete tools.”
Saskatchewan offers over 2,600 mental health services.
“In Saskatchewan, there are over 2,600 mental health resources, all you do is dial 211 and they’ll direct you to counselling,” said Froese. “We are also holding a camp at Camp Kenosee on October 16 to 18th for 20 women. It’s a little retreat and anyone can sign up.
Scan the QR Code below to sign up for the women’s retreat at Kenosee Lake:
