Jofacilitator

This is one of many stories from a wide variety of sources and a multitude of forms contributed by people upon request for my 70^th birthday.   They will be posted without editing, with the attribution that was with them.  I will be posting these regularly until they run out next year sometime: if you have others to add, please send them to me.

Dean and the Doggies

Dean, a man with serious health issues, lives in our neighbourhood.  In spite of his health and finance issues he is the home of last respite for small dogs that have been mistreated or are on their last legs.  Over the years he has provided a loving home for them, and socialised dogs who had not been socialised before.   He lives with limited means but still some how manages to look after the dogs mostly cheerfully.

Dean is an example to the rest of us who have a lot going for them in life and can only look at life as a glass half full.

This is one of many stories from a wide variety of sources and a multitude of forms contributed by people upon request for my 70^th birthday.   They will be posted without editing, with the attribution that was with them.  I will be posting these regularly until they run out next year sometime: if you have others to add, please send them to me.

Let me offer a very local and highly successful story of someone who is making a difference in their community.  In Tucson, we suffer, like many American cities, with shocking stories of senseless violence, where it seems the baser emotions and drug or alcohol-induced reactions seem to prevail at times.  We even had the murder of several staff and the serious wounding of a sitting national US Representative, Gabby Giffords, by a deranged individual several years ago.  She and her husband Mark Kelly are now leaders of an anti-gun advocacy group that claims credit for several key victories in this month’s election.

But I’d like to raise up a different individual, Jeannette Mare, who started Tucson’s “Ben’s Bells” about 10 years ago after the death of her toddler son.  She did it to respond to her deep grief and wanted to highlight all the goodness and kindness in our community.  Each week in the daily newspaper an individual is recognized with a picture, along with their nominator, and a brief write-up of why they were being recognized.  It reaches down into all the various organizations, schools, religious groups, and other approaches where individuals are acting out their care and concern for their local community, especially the individuals who are in need of such care and concern.  The mission of Ben'[s Bells is to “inspire people to understand that the practice of kindness is a lifetime endeavor.”  Other communities are following suit in this community-wide, non-partisan, non-religious approach.   Further information can be found at bensbells.org.

This is one of many stories from a wide variety of sources and a multitude of forms contributed by people upon request for my 70^th birthday.   They will be posted without editing, with the attribution that was with them.  I will be posting these regularly until they run out next year sometime: if you have others to add, please send them to me.

The Wakefield Grannies have been supporting grandmothers in one South African township since 2002. Wakefield is a small, historic village of about 4,000 people located in western Quebec just half an hour’s drive from the Canadian capital city, Ottawa. It began in 1830 as a village of immigrants – from Ireland, Scotland and England – and while its focus is now tourism and art, rather than timber, its well-traveled residents know they live in an interdependent world. Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson, whose invention of international peacekeeping in 1956 found a creative way to resolve world conflicts, is buried in the village. Like him, Wakefield’s grandmothers know that changing the world begins with small steps.

The story of how they developed a strong friendship with 40 South African grandmothers living in a crowded township near the South African capital of Johannesburg began with film-makers Brenda and Robert Rooney, who had worked with the Canadian International Development Agency and Vision TV in 2002 to make a documentary film entitled Condoms Fish and Circus Tricks. Shot in Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia, the film offered an intimate look at the people who are dying, those who are caring for them and why AIDS has had such a devastating impact on African society. They screened the film at Wakefield’s United Church and raised $1,000 for the church’s AIDS campaign.

In the audience was Thomas Minde, a doctor at Wakefield’s hospital, whose parents had just returned from a year in South Africa. His mother, Nina, a child psychologist, had volunteered at a children’s mental health clinic in Alexandra township, a tightly packed ghetto that is home to nearly 340,000 people. Shocked to see more and more children being brought to the clinic by their grandmothers because their parents were dead or dying from AIDS, and herself a grandmother, Nina offered to run a support group with clinic head nurse Rose Letwaba.

While not much attention was being paid to grandparents in 2002, Rose saw them as the silent victims of AIDS. She invited three grannies to a meeting and they told their stories and everyone cried a lot. The next week, there were five, and then there were 10 and there was no more room in Rose’s office. The grannies said they needed help in getting over the loss of their daughters and raising their grandchildren, who were often sad and angry; many of them had been plunged back into poverty. But as they met, and became more confident in their own abilities and shared their knowledge, they started to blossom and become more joyful.

Thomas told the story to minister Gisele Gilfillen, who invited Nina to speak at a morning service. She showed pictures of the East Bank Clinic and told the congregation about Rose, who soon would be attending a conference in Canada. Nina promised to bring Rose to Wakefield. And so, one Saturday night in October 2004, Rose painted a picture of a whole generation of South Africans lost to AIDS and grieving mothers left to carry the burden of raising their grandchildren to be healthy, educated, socially responsible adults. Rose described the 40 Grannies who were meeting at her clinic for sewing classes, gardening and moral support. An impromptu collection raised about $900, but that didn’t seem enough to 81-year-old Norma Geggie. She wanted to do more.

When Norma happened to meet Nina and Rose the next day, she asked “what if a group of women in Wakefield were to partner with these women?” They exchanged e-mail addresses, and Norma began making phone calls. When the Wakefield Grannies met for the first time in November 2004, each drew the name of an Alex Gogo – the Zulu word for grandmother – from a jar. It was the start of a relationship that was both personal, and collective.

The whole community was behind the grannies. They supported fundraising events, sent cheques, and businesses donated money, which was sent to Rose, who decided how it should be spent – for food, sewing equipment, winter blankets and track suits for HIV positive children who are highly susceptible to cold, and occasionally, overnight and weekend breaks for gogos and Alex teens who were heads of their households.

Knowing that grannies on the other side of the world cared so much about them gave the Alex Gogos tremendous hope, and helped dissolve the stigma that often affects such families. Within a year, as people heard about the Wakefield Grannies, other granny groups began in Canada and the United States. In the spring of 2006, the Stephen Lewis Foundation launched a Grandmother to Grandmother campaign that inspired the creation of hundreds of granny groups across Canada, and Lewis came to meet the Wakefield Grannies.

Robert Rooney had been filming the story from the start and soon realized it was a story about women, not about AIDS. In 2006, the Rooneys travelled to South Africa to film the Alex Gogos and then filmed several Wakefield Grannies at the Grandmother to Grandmother gathering. The story came full circle when Rose and three of the Alex gogos visited Wakefield on August 15, 2006. The resulting 80-minute documentary, The Great Granny Revolution, fittingly, had its world premiere in Wakefield on May 5, 2007.

This work is inspiring many younger people. Says one: “If grey-haired old women believe they can impact a change in the world, then why can’t our generation?” Near the end of the film, Rose Letwaba is speaking at the Wakefield United Church. “If everyone was like the people of Wakefield,” she says, “the world would be a better place to live in.”

This is one of many stories from a wide variety of sources and a multitude of forms contributed by people upon request for my 70^th birthday.   They will be posted without editing, with the attribution that was with them.  I will be posting these regularly until they run out next year sometime: if you have others to add, please send them to me.

I would like to tell a story about Jim, my 83-year-old brother in law, married to my oldest sister.  He is the father of six children and many grandchildren.  He has always worked hard to support his family and everyone else can count on him to listen if you need a listener. He is a good man!

Since his retirement he has taken over the pick-up, upkeep and training for his local food shelf. He actually built the shelving, organized the way food is stored, obtained freezers and brings forth volunteers. He is like the great leader and organizer of the food shelf and volunteers.

He personally visited local stores to get food that would otherwise have been sent to landfills. It reached the point that the stores would call him when they had food to be picked up. It was not always food — sometimes there were clothing and other items that had been returned to the stores or the seasonal change items that families might need.

This of course meant many hours sorting food, stocking shelves, obtaining boxes and bags for the food shelf clients. He also spent times in the food shelf assisting the clients. One of his daughters and her husband have picked up some of the work that Jim used to do. Yes, he has slowed down, so he has trained someone to take over.

You know the expiration dates on food? Well in most cases those are dates that it is best to sell the product by. Most products have a shelf life well beyond those dates. He made sure that no food was left without being used. There is a trailer court community not far from his home. Most of the people living there are Hispanic immigrants and low income or no income families. Jim made sure that if the food shelf had dented cans or food that would not be picked up by food shelf clients and to eliminate it from becoming garbage, he personally delivered it to the trailer court community with no questions asked. The food always disappeared.

Jim is not so healthy anymore. He actually has some severe heart problems. We will find out more about his health this week. He is big hearted, kind and caring about the world around him. He has definitely worked to help his local community. I just want to acknowledge this good man for all of his good work.