Alain (Al) Joseph Boire (1957-) is an author, founding member and first president of the Maillardville Residents' Association (MRA), and an active and passionate advocate for the Maillardville community.
Boire was born in Maillardville on October 15, 1957. He was raised in a French Canadian family and spent his formative years in the Maillardville community. He attended Notre Dame de Lourdes school, St. Thomas More Collegiate, Ecole Montgomery Middle School, and Centennial School. Boire became a professional home inspector, and resided in Maillardville for most of his life.
Boire has been active in the Maillardville community in many ways. In 1981-1985, he was the Director of Notre Dame de Lourdes Catholic Church, and during 2000-2005, Boire served as the director of Village Credit Union. Concerned with the developments in the community, Boire and a group of neighbours joined and founded the MRA in 2005, where Boire became the first president. The MRA was very active between the years of 2005 and 2011 and Boire was instrumental in starting long-standing community initiatives, such as its "Clean Up Maillardville" days, an Adopt-a-Street program, a Forum on Crime and a community website and directory. Boire was a founding member of the Maillardville Commercial and Cultural Revitalization task force committee on the MRA. Additionally, Boire joined the board of Place Maillardville Community in 2006, where he was Executive Director from 2011 to 2013.
In 2009, on behalf of the MRA, Boire completed research into the history of Maillardville for the community's centenary. On their website they published ten short biographies each month on a specific decade in Maillardville's history. Over the next seven years Boire intermittently returned to the project. In honour of Coquitlam's 125th anniversary in 2016, Boire completed his research and published his book, "With Hearts and Minds: Maillardville, 100 Years of History on the West Coast of BC."
Boire was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award in 2012. In 2018, Boire and his family moved to Smiths Falls, Ontario.
published
Title based on the content of the series.
The series consists primarily of photocopied materials accumulated by Boire relating to the history of Maillardville as well as the research notes he created during the process of writing and publishing his book, "With Hearts and Minds."
Record types include newspaper articles and clippings, newsletters, printed materials, correspondence, recorded interviews, reports, biographies, inventories, handwritten notes, photographs, a map, a thesis, and digital records. The series also includes manuscript copies of "With Hearts and Minds."