Follow Us... 
If she’d known how tough running a restaurant was, Judy Servay never would have launched one, especially a not-for-profit designed to serve the community with every plate of food.
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
Toronto volunteer Phyllis Novak has spent the last two decades trying to maximize the creative potential for at-risk and homeless youth. In 1996, her efforts materialized into Sketch, an art studio that offers marginalized young adults, aged 15 to 29, the chance to express themselves through the arts, from painting to sculpture, photography to music recording.
“The underlying assumption behind every welcome or entrance [into Sketch] is that we just assume people are creative and that they have something to contribute,” Novak tells Samaritanmag. “That’s not always something that homeless people or marginalized young people hear. They don’t hear that they have capacities that the rest of the world needs to learn from. They hear that they have deficits and that they need to get those taken care of, and then they can participate as a full member of society.”
One of the central motives behind Sketch is to expand the opportunities for homeless and street-involved youth. It offers the chance for struggling young adults to get relief from the conflicts and pressures of an underprivileged life, and just let loose creatively and become part of a community.
“People first know how to be themselves and feel good about being themselves, and then feel okay about interacting with each other and building cooperation and communication skills with each other,” Novak says of the learning framework after which Sketch is modeled.
“And then the people [start] getting excited about the potential of using the arts to participate in the world, making stuff to show and to sell, or writing a song and performing it in public.”
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
Amanda Belzowski is a 13-year-old with a big assignment to finish. It’s not an English essay or science fair project. The Toronto teen is trying to spread the word about her 13th annual lemonade stand fundraiser, which has raised over $150,000 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation since its launch in 1999 and is now raising money for Save A Child’s Heart and SickKids Hospital.
This year, the charity event will be held at 33 Post Road, on May 15 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. It used to be called Amanda’s Lemonade Stand, but she has now relinquished the title to her five-year-old brother, who ran Joshua’s Cookie Counter for two years alongside his sister’s stand. But, it is still up to Amanda to campaign, speak to the volunteers, make sure the 25 gallons of lemonade (and other snacks, amenities and auction prizes) are prepared and, of course, help her brother pour the lemonade.
Belzowski is a rare breed of kid: she is a passionate volunteer, philanthropist and inspirational speaker who sincerely believes in the “follow your dreams” sentiments that her peers might find corny. She is on a mission to give back and inspire other youths to do the same because that’s what she’s been accomplishing for nearly her entire young life.
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
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.
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
Canadian actress Carly Pope, who stars in the new modern romance movie, Textuality, in which she is seeing four men intimately, doesn’t live in Vancouver anymore where she volunteered for three years at OPTions For Sexual Health (formerly Planned Parenthood of British Columbia), so she has become involved with Planned Parenthood America.
There is a different need there, she notes, simply because health care isn’t publicly funded as it is in Canada.
“I’m on their board of advocates for Planned Parenthood America. I think Planned Parenthood offers a really good service to so many women who don’t have the option of healthcare,” Pope tells Samaritanmag. “With Planned Parenthood America, I haven’t got too involved, but I’ll speak more on the Canadian side of it because I was more involved.”
BC-based Options for Sexual Health is Canada's largest non-profit provider of sexual health services through clinics, advocacy, education programs, and the 1-800 SEX SENSE information and referral line. In February of this year, the organization celebrated 50 years in existence. It changed its name from Planned Parenthood in 2004.
“Options for Sexual Health supports the unrestricted right of all women to choose when and if to have children,” it states on its web site. “We support the right of young people to receive the sexual health education and services they seek, based on their informed consent.”
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
Originally founded in the 1996, Lek's park has become a loving home to, at last count, 34 elephants. Almost all of the elephants at the park have been rescued from either abuse, neglect or, worst of all, downsizing, the tour guide, an equally petite young Thai woman, explains to the group of visitors this January day. She says traditionally elephants were used in Thailand's logging industry, but after a logging ban enacted in 1989, these working elephants became liabilities and were often sold into the tourist trade or just let loose. And while an elephant in the tourist trade may only have to contend with a certain loss of dignity, a fully grown elephant roaming an inhabited countryside quickly becomes a pest and is dealt with as such. Of the many elephants taken into the park over the years one was blinded, one lost a tusk to poachers, one lost a foot to a land mine, and 2 were orphaned, she says. However, since it's founding the park has recorded seven births. No history of abuse for those big babies.
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
Have you ever suddenly decided to volunteer at Christmas time at a shelter or food bank and been told they're fully booked? Have you been asked to come down on Christmas Eve to serve dinner to the homeless, but there are so many volunteers that you're just in the way? Well, call now!
This is, of course, the time when people are busy buying presents and planning their own Christmas activities, then get all warm and fuzzy as they dive into the season and want to give back — but it may be too late. While people go hungry year-round, food banks often see a spike in volunteers in December.
The Daily Bread Food Bank is the largest provider of emergency food relief in the Greater Toronto Area. It supports more than 170 member agencies in running different kinds of food relief programs that see a monthly average of 73,000 client visits.
Sarah Anderson, Daily Bread’s senior manager of communications, canvassed four of the food bank’s staff members who regularly work with volunteers and asked them for feedback on what people who want to help during the holiday season should know. Here are their 10 tips:
* Samaritanmag.com is an online magazine covering the good deeds of individuals, charities and businesses.
