Alicia Canning was raised in Providence as one of seven children. It was there that she started her career at age sixteen with McDonald’s. In the years that followed, she took business courses at a junior college and met her former husband, a fellow McDonald’s employee.
In 1979 Alicia (pronounced “ah-LEE-shah”) received her degree in Hamburgerology at Hamburger University in Chicago. From 1982-1995 she lived in New Jersey. In 2000 she and her husband became owner-operators of McDonald's franchises in Windsor and South Windsor, Connecticut. They subsequently added franchises in Canton, Granby, Simsbury and Torrington. Alicia ran the Canton McDonald’s from 2009 to 2015, after she and her husband parted ways.
Alicia lives in Canton with her ten year old dog Mollie, a bichon havanese mix. She has three daughters: Stephanie, who works for the Center for Disease control, recently moving from South Africa to Atlanta where she lives with her two children - Jackson (age three) and Riley (age one and a half), Shannon who teaches in Hartford and lives in Canton with her three children - Chloe (age five), and twins Lucas and Lilly (age one and a half) and Sarah who is getting her real estate license and lives in Bristol with her two children - Louisa (age three) and Theo (age one and a half).
Alicia is currently an elementary education substitute teacher in Canton. She has been very active with Rotary and is currently Sergeant-at-Arms. In addition she will be next year’s Senior Luncheon Chair and has been involved with Interact, Amber Alert and the golf outing. She likes to travel and actually went bungee jumping while visiting her daughter in South Africa. Above all else though, she considers her grandkids to be her proudest achievement.