GOODS

BY JIM SLOTEK, www.samaritanmag.com

All eyes have been on American actor Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are Alright) since he was cast as Peeta Mellark opposite Jennifer Lawrence in the movie of the post-apocalyptic young adult best-seller Hunger Games (opening in March). Now he wants to use his newfound fame to open those eyes to the realities of homophobia.

Hutcherson, 19, is one of the founders of Straight But Not Narrow, a coalition of straight young actors speaking in a series of online videos to young straight males against the bullying of gay males (see below for Hutcherson's clip).

Straight But Not Narrow was the brainchild of Hutcherson’s best friend, Vancouver-born Avan Jogia of Nickelodeon’s Victorious – “guys talking to guys about guys who like guys.”

Besides Jogia and Hutcherson, the list of participants includes Glee’s Cory Monteith, Jogia’s Victorious castmates Matthew Bennett and Leon Thomas, Ryan Rottman of TeenNick’s Gigantic and Gethin Anthony from HBO’s Game Of Thrones.

“It’s a lot of young actors in the industry, a lot of them friends,” Hutcherson tells Samaritanmag.com. “It’s a bunch of straight people coming out, so to speak, about how important it is...

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

The metal music community is continuing to come up with ways to raise money to help with medical expenses and eventual post-care for a 25-year-old guitarist who was paralyzed in a robbery last October in Buffalo, New York.

Members of death metal legends Cannibal Corpse, whose original line-up is from Buffalo, have all signed a brand new custom Dean Cadillac Kill guitar presently being raffled off via the Facebook group Metal For Tony, and other bands, such as Quebec’s Voivod, Texas-based King Diamond, Maryland’s Dying Fetus and Czech Republic-based Master, have all donated metal memorabilia for bid (see "doc" tab on Facebook page for the list).

The PayPal account, which is handled by his family, is helpingtony@gmail.com.

“Tony remains in the hospital,” his mother, Caroline Bronckers, told Samaritanmag.com. “He is working daily with physical rehab, and his outlook is positive. Right now, he is paralyzed from the chest down and it takes months, if not years, to fully know the result of a spinal cord injury due to surrounding tissue damage, and swelling, and the slow rate that nerves heal. He may or may not walk again...

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Wu-Tang Clan member and solo artist Raekwon, who grew up in the low-income housing complex of Park Hill in Staten Island, NY, is involved in a new not-for-profit, Children's Literacy Society, to help the kids of his community.  

"It's definitely needed because it's so rough in my neighbourhood that we worry about these kids and we try to give 'em as much hope as we can," Raewkon told www.samaritanmag.com.

"It's just us trying to give them a sense of direction from a older big brother or big sister point of view and really just try to commend them when at least they're trying."

Children's Literacy Society provides funds and resources for after-school enrichment programs, such as reading, writing, sports, music, art, dance and nutrition, for at-risk children in Staten Island with a concentration in Richmond County.

"Our goal is to instill confidence and motivation in children to become productive and successful individuals," it states on the organization's web site. "CLS develops, guides, nurtures and supports our future generation with respect and dignity; collaboration with local schools and organizations to connect our programs with families, we continue to be able to 'give a child a chance.'"

BY NICK KREWEN, www.samaritanmag.com

If you find yourself in the charitable spirit during the holidays, you can give the gift of sustainability.

From now until the end of the year, Ten Thousand Villages — the oldest and largest Fair Trade organization in North America with an online presence at www.TenThousandVillages.ca and a 48-store network throughout the continent — has a number of beneficiaries that will stretch your dollar should you choose to purchase a gift or donate.

For example, a $40 gift will buy four bags of cement that will be used to construct a sand dam in Tanzania, helping to provide clean and accessible water for local communities.

A $25 gift of empowerment will provide soap-making training for former Bangladesh sex workers, and an additional $6 will provide the natural oil and fresh herb soap materials.

Feeling especially generous? For $350, you can provide a “farmyard” that includes the gift of small livestock and training for Kenya families, while a single goat costs $35.

You can even “pair” gifts: While $300 will buy an education for an impoverished child, another $8 will give them a handmade paper journal from India.

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Renowned Canadian fashion photographer and visual artist Raphael Mazzucco has an enviable job of traveling the world shooting for Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, Victoria’s Secret, Guess Jeans, Playboy, Intimissimi lingerie, and a host of other top clients such as Ralph Lauren, Bergdorf Goodman and L’Oreal.

His current major project is an artistic 200-plus page coffee table book of women’s behinds, called CULO by Mazzucco (out November 22), which was executive produced by Jimmy Iovine and Sean “Diddy” Combs, and features dozens of models, as well as Sarah McLachlan, Lady Gage and Fergie.

In recent years, Mazzucco, who always wanted to be a painter, added visual artist to his professional resume.

His work — a mix of his photography, paint, resin and found objects — has been exhibited in Milan, Florence, Melbourne, Singapore, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and can sell for as much as $80,000 each.

So when Mazzucco, who now lives in Montauk, part of the famed Hamptons in Long Island, NY, has the opportunity to give back, he donates an art piece — a simple gesture that can have a major impact on a fundraising target.

“I sent paintings to over 50 charities last year,” Mazzucco tells www.samaritanmag.com. “So much of my artwork I’ve donated to a lot of different charities.

“I read this article about how artists should really figure out which charities they should donate to and not just give give give, but I’m not a believer of that. I think that anytime you can have anything that you can contribute, you should.”

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Sixteen-year-old rising hip hop artist Reema Major, currently working on her debut album for G7/Universal Music Canada and Cherrytree/Interscope in the U.S., doesn’t remember much about her life in Sudan. She was just a toddler when her mother had the opportunity to come to Canada in 1998 with her six siblings.

“My mom is from the South, which is now its own independent country, but when she tells me about my early days, it was really a struggle,” Major tells www.samaritanmag.com. “We lived in a one bedroom shack in Kenya and Uganda and we were really struggling, so she was trying to get out of the country 10 years even prior to when I was born.

“So when she got the call for us to leave the country, it was like a Hallelujah, thank you God, praise Jesus. She was the first Sudanese women to be able to leave the country like that with seven kids and no support of a man. So it was a struggle: everything — the poverty, the one meal a day — things I can’t even really comprehend.”

Major was too little to remember that part of her life, but it still made an impact on her and shaped who she is today.  Her full-length mixtape, I Am Legend, provides some glimpses as to her background, particularly in the opening lines to the song “Father.”

“Dear father today I was told that I am a refugee / Does that mean I can’t be who I am destined to be? / The little girl in my class says she’s smarter than me / Cause immigrants come from the other side of the sea … Love you dad keep me safe no nightmares and Amen /Those were my prayers around the age of 6.”

BY STEVE McLEAN, www.samaritanmag.com

Carbon for Water is the name of both a life-changing program in Kenya and a 21-minute film about the project that was shown at Toronto’s Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival on Sunday afternoon.

Kenya’s Western Province has been undergoing a human and environmental crisis due to deadly but preventable diseases originating from water in local rivers that’s used for a variety of purposes and has become unsafe to drink. People boil water to purify it, but that requires wood to make fires and has resulted in young children missing school so they can gather firewood and major deforestation. Smoke from fires inside houses causes health issues and high CO2 emissions, while fewer trees in the region contributes to less precipitation, which causes its own problems. It’s a multi-faceted issue — especially in a country with a rapidly growing population —in desperate need of viable solutions.

American filmmakers Evan and Carmen Abramson made their first documentary, When The Water Ends, last year. It dealt with deadly conflicts over water taking place in East Africa and led to a dialogue beginning between the filmmakers and executives from Vestergaard Frandsen, a European company specializing in disease control products that was launching the $25-million Carbon for Water program to distribute its LifeStraw Family water filters to 90 per cent of the households in Western Kenya.

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Lights, the Juno Award-winning electro pop artist whose 2009 debut album, The Listening, went gold in Canada, is an ideal voice to get behind a charity. The 24-year-old has 600,000 Facebook followers and 277,000 on Twitter. That's a lot of people interested in what she has to say.

With her new album, Siberia, out October 4, and a U.S. tour to follow, she will only expand her reach, and when she can she will speak about the two charities in which she is invested: World Vision Canada, particularly their work in the Philippines where Lights spent part of her childhood; and Skate4Cancer, a Toronto-based foundation led by her good friend, Rob Dyer.

“Probably the most primary is World Vision,” Lights Poxleitner tells www.samaritanmag.com (she only goes by her first name). “Aside from the basics of sponsoring a kid, I’ve done videos with them for 30-Hour Famine encouraging high school kids across North America to take part in that and actually last August, myself, and World Vision, and Jian [Ghomeshi, her manager and CBC Radio host] went over to Philippines and looked at some of the camps.”

While many artists who travel to developing countries with World Vision or other humanitarian aid organization usually find the experience life changing, Lights’ upbringing, the daughter of missionary parents, made her more aware of what was in store.