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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 KIM HUGHES, www.samaritanmag.com

When actor Michael Kash mounts the stage at Toronto’s Theatre Centre on February 20, he’ll be doing more than just channeling his character in Eugene O’Neill’s gripping and rarely performed play, Hughie. He’ll also be assisting people living with asthma and serious allergies by raising buckets of cash.

All proceeds from that night’s performance - potentially $7,000 to $12,000 – will benefit Anaphylaxis Canada, a national registered charity, information resource and support group for children and adults grappling with allergies, especially those relating to food, which can be fatal.

The benefit is just another example of Kash’s ongoing altruism. He is the founder of the Alley Theatre Workshop, which since 2005 has operated with the stated mandate of always giving back to the community through charities involving children.

Proceeds are raised through performances and fundraisers organized by ATW and so far, the charities chosen have had some personal connection to Kash. For example, the first such venture, during ATW’s 2005 production of Ann Randolph’s Squeezebox, came about because Randolph talked...

BY IAN WALKER, www.samaritanmag.com

As a young boy back in Beirut, Lebanon, Marwan Hage, now the Hamilton Tiger-Cats offensive lineman and founder of the charity Hage's Heroes, often drifted off to sleep to the echo of gunfire.

During the day, he couldn't just step outside on a whim to visit with friends. Instead, the basement of his childhood home often served as his playground, especially when the war outside got too close. It was there that family members would try their best to distract the youngest of four children from the fighting on the streets.

Hage contends he's a better man for what he lived through in Beirut. Those images of smashed windows, houses trembling and the sights and sounds of rockets sent screaming from the mountains, lighting up the night like fireworks, now serve as daily reminders.

He moved to Montreal with his family just before his 10^th birthday. “War's not pretty,” Hage tells Samaritanmag.com. “I remember those early days very well. It was an ugly time — countrymen killing each other on the streets. As a kid, you don't understand it all, but you know something isn't right. Luckily, my family shielded me from the uglier aspects or it may have been different. I wasn't scarred by war...

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 KIM HUGHES, www.samaritanmag.com

It’s hard to believe that another chapter could possibly be added to the story of yoga, which already spans the globe and the millennia. And yet a new, perhaps unlikely group — at-risk and incarcerated youth — is discovering the stress relief, mood-enhancement and improved balance and fitness benefits of regular yoga practice.

That’s thanks to the New Leaf Yoga Foundation. The Toronto-based registered charity brings downward dog, shavasana, meditation and conscious breathing — and the above-mentioned benefits they confer — to teens “overcoming histories of abuse, neglect, incarceration, gang-involvement, addiction, marginalization and other factors that have led them to be identified as ‘at risk,’” according to the Foundation’s website, www.newleafyoga.org. 

Those involved insist yoga teaches real-world coping skills (focus, relaxation and calming breath, for example) that youth can access to constructively deal with anxiety and anger rather than acting out.  Plus, it’s fun. Judging by the testimonials of former students...

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Cristina Scabbia, co-vocalist for Italian metal band Lacuna Coil, has a water well in her name in Kajiado area of Kenya from her contribution to Rezophonic, an ambitious collaborative album, whose proceeds go to the world renown African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).

“Rezophonic is a musical project that involves more than a hundred artists from the underground, mainly the rock scene. Now it involves more people even from different scenes, even the very big Italian artists,” Scabbia tells Samaritanmag.com.

“I got a call from them the other day — because somebody else did a donation — and so far 122 wells have been built, which is amazing. Every well gives clear water to drink to 50 families so they don’t...

BY AARON BROPHY, www.samaritanmag.com

On any given weekend you might find Oshawa, Ontario's Rob Weir catching a pass from former National Hockey League legend Darryl Sittler, attempting to deke around hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne, or ducking and dodging the elbows and slashes of the Hanson Brothers of Slap Shot fame.

Swirling around the ice with former pros is an unlikely place for a guy like Weir, who didn't even start playing hockey until the age of 20, but he's got a good reason. Weir's the program coordinator of the Heart & Stroke Foundations' Hockey For Heart series of charitable hockey tournaments across Ontario. It's his job to play hockey with the pros.

"It's the greatest job in the world," says Weir, 40, with that same sense of awe as a 10-year-old autograph seeker by the side doors of the Air Canada Centre. "I'm literally getting paid to play hockey with [former Toronto Maple Leafs great] Wendel Clark."

Getting to share the ice with the likes of Clark came with a cost, though. The whole reason the Hockey For Heart tournaments exist is because Weir witnessed his own father Roger Weir have a heart attack on the ice at the age of 46 while playing a game with him in 1993.

"I was sitting on the bench, looked down at the other end of the ice where the play was, looked back at my dad and saw that he had fallen over and instantly knew that something wasn't right because I knew it wasn't from something that had happened during the play," Weir recalls of that tragic night.

BY KAREN BLISS, www.samaritanmag.com

Charity was far from the minds of the ecstatic girls that comprised the majority of the 2750-capacity audience at Toronto’s Massey Hall last night (Dec. 21) for Justin Bieber’s rare theatre concert. They were just focused on the 17-year-old pop heartthrob, as he performed with his guitarist, Dan Kanter, for close to two hours.

All ticket proceeds from the special Christmas show, Justin Bieber: Home For The Holidays, which airs tonight on Canada's MuchMusic/CTV, went to his Believe Charity Drive — but even before those figures were calculated, the generous teen decided to round it up to an even half-a-mil.