kids

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 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 NICK KREWEN

The founder of Skate4Cancer has evolved his vision. Rob Dyer, the 27-year-old Newmarket, Ontario native who has skateboarded across the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and parts of Australia to raise awareness about cancer, has a new goal in mind: the Dream Love Cure Centre (http://dreamlovecure.org/).

“It’s basically going to be a support centre for kids who are going through cancer, or kids who have been impacted directly or indirectly by the disease,” Dyer told Samaritanmag.  “There aren’t a lot of places available for kids to go and talk and share their emotions and stories, especially on the counseling side of things.

“When you lose someone to cancer, I find that there’s not really many places for you to turn, because it’s a life-changing experience. And if you don’t have a place that’s non-judgmental, it can be really hard on kids.”

Dyer knows from personal experience: within a year, he lost his mom, Wendy, his grandparents and his best friend Matt McInnes to the disease.

And he’s not alone: according to stats published on the Canadian Cancer Society website, an estimated 1 in 4 Canadians are expected to die from cancer, with an estimated 173,800 new cases being diagnosed every week.

Dyer’s loss occurred eight years ago, and he admits he fought depression, crediting his friends with bringing him out of his funk and keeping him positive.

BY JORDAN ADLER

Out on the street, two police officers punching each other would likely get them taken into custody, but at the 2011 Police Memorial “Ringside For Kids,” held April 28, at Le Treport Wedding and Convention Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, it was in the name of charity.

Presented by Canadian Emergency Services Boxing Association (CESBA), the fourth annual Police Memorial Boxing Event helped raise $7000 to send two kids on a weeklong visit to Camp Oochigeas, an Ontario camp for children battling cancer.  

Police officers, peace officers, firefighters and paramedics went toe to toe and trained boxers and Olympic hopefuls from CESBA had their own bouts. On occasion, a civilian even got in the ring with law enforcement.

“A lot of people enjoying seeing police officers box each other,” CESBA president Barry “Bear” Dolan tells Samaritanmag.com.  “This provides an opportunity for people to come out and see [the city authorities] in a different light.”

The proceeds were handed over to Camp Oochigeas in memory of fallen police and peace officers, such as Sgt. Ryan Russell, Cst. Artem “James” Ochakovsky, Cst. Vu Pham and Cst. Eric Czapnik.

BY LUTHER MALLORY

The Remix Project is a registered charity for the arts in Toronto that helps creatively gifted “at risk” teens and young adults, often from troubled or disadvantaged backgrounds, who don’t have the usual opportunities to fulfill their true potential. The various programs from music to business to photography better their lives and often give them a direction and career path.

Among the programs are Creative Arts with studies in graphic design, videography and writing; Recording Arts focusing on artists, engineering and production; and an entrepreneurial program called the Art of Business, which teaches participants about setting and reaching goals. This coming semester, slated to begin in September, will introduce both the Art of Photography and City Life Film programs.

“These young people are assets," says executive director and founder Gavin Sheppard. "It's up to us to figure out what it is they're best at and then help them realize it themselves, and then build the capacity to succeed in that.

"Drake's whole movement started here,” he adds as an example. “His producer [Noah Shebib a.k.a. 40] ran our recording arts program; his DJ [Future The Prince] is a graduate of our business program; his social media and graphics person [Karla Moy a.k.a. Hustle Girl] is a graduate of our creative arts program.”

BY KAREN BLISS 

Neil and Pegi Young’s Bridge School in Hillsborough, California, was a much-needed, one-of-a-kind school for children with severe speech and physical impairments when it opened in 1987. Now it is a model for other schools and uses communication technology to teach its methods to other teachers around the world.

“Bridge School is a model,” Neil Young told Samaritanmag.com backstage at the Juno Awards in Toronto where he accepted the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award in late March. 

“We have a teachers-in-residence program, where teachers come from all around the world and every year we have a visiting teacher from a different part of the world. Then they go back to their countries and we support [them]. And now, more with Cisco Systems and Tele-Presence, we communicate directly with all these schools throughout the world using the Bridge School model.”

The Youngs started the school after they were unable to find a suitable learning environment for their son, Ben, who was born with cerebral palsy. Teaming up with Jim Forderer, another parent of a special needs child, and Dr. Marilyn Buzolich, a speech and language pathologist, they envisioned a school in which each child was given individual attention, based on their skills and abilities, and encouraged to grow and develop into adulthood.

BY KIM HUGHES 

Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada can’t grant trips to the moon, but some 16,000 other wishes have been fulfilled in its 25-plus-year history. Its mandate is simple — kids aged three to 17 living in Canada who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness are granted a special wish as a means of lifting their spirits during painful symptoms and medical treatments.

And while there is no evidence to suggest that wishes granted impact children’s physical health, the mental health benefits are abundant and obvious, according to communications director Paul St. Germain.  “We have had countless testimonials about how much impact these wishes have had on the children,” he tells Samaritanmag from the organization’s headquarters in Pickering, ON.

Children’s Wish has a local chapter in every province and territory and is the largest and only all Canadian wish-granting organization in the country.

Wishes run the gamut from travel to meeting celebrities, but are sometimes much more complex. One child, for example, wished that his Edmonton-based grandparents lived closer to his home in Atlantic Canada. Children’s Wish moved them.

BY KAREN BLISS

Many people get behind causes and charities and musicians are often asked to become spokespeople, "ambassadors" or simply perform at a fundraising event when they reach even a modicum of success. When Montreal's Simple Plan had sold close to 4 million albums worldwide, the pop-rock band felt it could not only launch its own foundation but keep it going year after year.

"It was actually a friend's idea and it was right before a big Canadian tour," singer Pierre Bouvier tells Samaritanmag. "Most of the shows were if not sold out, then close to it. There was a friend of ours that said, ‘You have to start a foundation because once you're in there and you have all these venues that are already taking percentages, if everybody cuts a little bit off their percentage, and puts it into this, we can raise a lot of money and make an impact and from there.'"

Drummer Chuck Comeau remembers it being his parents', André Comeau and Françoise Talbot, idea.

"The Foundation was started in 2005," he tells Samaritanmag in a recent email. "We were receiving thousands of letters from fans sharing with us some very sad and tragic stories and telling us how much our music was helping them deal with their difficult situations. We wanted to do something more than just write songs for them so my parents suggested that we should start our very own foundation to give back and help young people in need. The band was into the idea right away and the Simple Plan Foundation was born."