Is Interview with Ben Ly! page 13
Global Warming
Affecting Migratory Bird’s Patterns?
C! O! N! T! E! N! T
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THE DIFFERENCE MAKER
March
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Editor’s Note
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Street Patrol
page 4!
Inside Auschwitz
page 8!
The Lorax
page 19
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EDITOR’S NOTE “The difference between ignorance and stupidity is knowledge, and more importantly, what you do with it”
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It is a quote frequently quoted by Mr. James Scott Neil, founder of the Humanitarian Environmental Leadership Program )H.E.L.P!(. This innovative high school program, educates it’s students on the vast social justice and environmental issues on a local and global level.The program is taught through experiential learning, meaning, the students participate in a variety of volunteer opportunities, allowing them to apply their knowledge in the “real world”. This is the first issue of the Difference Maker magazine which aims to recognize the experiences of the H.E.L.P! students while educating it’s readers about the issues the students are combatting through their volunteer work. This month, the students made a difference in the lives of the less fortunate and homeless in Toronto, had the rare opportunity of meeting a Holocaust survivor as well as helped to collect data to help learn the effects of global warming on local and migratory birds and the effects car pollution has on the water system. Now once you, the reader, are armed with the knowledge between the covers of this magazine, what will you do with it?
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Students of the H.E.L.P! program gather at the entrance to St. Francis Table in Toronto, ready to spend the morning volunteering.
Beggars Can Be Choosers By Brittany Curry-Sharples! Photographs by James S. Neil and Brittany Curry-Sharples
View of the financial district through the buildings on queen street.
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His face was clean-‐shaven and wrinkled from smoking as he took the cream cheese bagel I had offered him. He accepted a glass of Coca Cola and promptly added a shot of tequila to his drink. It was 11 am on Friday March 2nd. “I have my AA meetings on Thursdays” he told me, “which is convenient; I can go out and party on Fridays,” he said with a wink. John is one of the many homeless living in downtown Toronto. In his case, he has been forced into homelessness after being put on probation at a homeless shelter. That morning the students from H.E.L.P! were offering sandwiches and drinks to the homeless. The day before, we had prepared nearly 100 lunch bags complete with a sandwich, fruit and dessert. The fruit we packed were bananas and oranges, softer fruits, as many homeless don’t have adequate dental care. Cream cheese and jam, turkey and bacon, ham, tuna, egg salad and cheese (for the vegetarians) were among the sandwich
options. We also brought different pop and juice in 2 L. containers as well as plastic cups. The variety of sandwiches and drinks had a purpose. We intended on serving the homeless, instead of just handing them any sandwich and a juice-‐box. Offering a variety and giving the homeless the ability to choose preserved their dignity. Pouring them a drink also opened the opportunity to start a conversation and provide companionship. We joined Dean PenaViel outside of City Hall. Dean is an assistant for the OfVice of Catholic Youth (OCY)-‐ a division of the Archdiocese of Toronto who would lead us on the walk. The OCY strives to serve young people and youth ministers in Toronto through their “3 C’s” principles: Celebrating, Connecting and Commissioning. They aim to celebrate life and faith, connect with God and one another and commission youth to create their own missions in the footsteps of Jesus.
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As we walked along Queen Street offering sandwiches and companionship, I noticed that the majority of those on the streets were white, older men. We saw only one woman begging with a Tim Hortons cup, but when we offered her a sandwich, she refused saying that she already had one.
People become homeless for many different reasons. They might have grown up in an abusive home, or have a substance abuse problem, or they might be mentally disabled; each situation is unique. Some are educated, like the man with the cowboy hat. Some had a house, a car and a dog, like John. One in six lives below the poverty line in Toronto, it could easily happen to any of us. As we walk past someone begging, most people conveniently notice something very interesting on the other side of the street, or suddenly have a very important text message to reply to. I must admit, I too am guilty of this; however, after this experience, even if I don’t have a sandwich or any change to offer, I know that I can still offer a smile or a simple “hello”. Acknowledging a person’s existence can sometimes be more Villing than food.
“One in six lives below the poverty line in Toronto.” We spoke to an older man with a white beard, wearing a cowboy hat decorated with Mardi Gras beads. He carried a black knapsack with a pink yoga mat strapped to the top of it. We offered him a sandwich and he accepted. I told him all of the varieties we had to offer and he paused quizzically when I offered him a turkey bacon sandwich. “Turkey bacon!” he exclaimed, “Since when have they been able to genetically modify animals!?”. We laughed and replied “well, I guess it’s a turkey and bacon sandwich”. I reached into my partner’s backpack to get the bag labeled TB and he reached into my pack to pour the man a glass of orange juice. He thanked us and we wished each other a good day. As we turned to continue down the street he jokingly shouted over his shoulder “and thanks for the tuberculosis!”
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GENOCIDE! We said “Never Again” in Europe. We said “Never Again” in Rwanda. We said “Never Again” in Sudan.! !
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At the age of 15, Max Eisen had seen and endured more than most would in a lifetime. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1929, into a family of jewish decent. In 1944 his family was forcefully taken from their home and kept in a school with the other jews from the village overnight, while their neighbors raided and looted their houses. The next morning they were packed into trains and made the long trek to Auschwitz.
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“One minute in Auschwitz was like a thousand years”
Within minutes of being hauled off the train, most of Max’s family was marched straight to the gas chambers. He was selected, along with his father and uncle, to become a slave labourer. The camps “living” conditions are beyond the imagination. There was a constant pain in your stomach as you would get only tea for breakfast, soup for lunch and coffee for dinner, a 300-‐calorie liquid diet. The prisoners would guard their white, plastic bowls with their lives, tying it to their chests, under their shirts as they slaved away and using them as pillows at night. If you didn’t have a bowl, you didn’t have food; and if you didn’t have food, you were dead. The victims slept on what was more like wooden shelving than beds. “1 minute in Auschwitz was like 1000 years” said Max “anything can happen to anyone. That is the message of [Auschwitz]”. Death slowly turned into something inviting, an escape.
Max says he got lucky. A polish doctor named Dr. Orzesko said he needed Max to be the operation room manager. Although the days were sometimes longer than if he had been doing slave labour, he was indoors, protected from the elements, he wasn’t doing as much physical labour and was able to receive a little more food. In August of 1944, Max’s father and uncle were selected to be sent to the gas chambers. Soon after, the prisoners were forced to march for Vive days in the freezing cold, known as the death march. Max survived the march, that ended in the concentration camp Ebensee, in Austria. On May 6th, sick with typhus, another prisoner informed Max that there were no guards in the towers. There were always guards in the towers. Needing to see it for himself, Max dragged himself out of his bunk and along the ground to the camp’s central square. He was lying among thousands of bodies that the Nazis hadn’t cared to dispose of in over a month. Suddenly, the gate at the entrance to the camp came crashing down and an American tank burst into the camp. The black battlian of Americans (at the time the army was segregated) tried their best to help the survivors. The Virst thing they did was give the victims food.
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However, after months of a liquid diet, most prisoners couldn’t handle food and many’s stomachs ruptured, killing them before they could take their second mouthful. It took months for Max to slowly regain his health. In August, he made his way home only to discover that a neighbor was living in his home and refused to let him in. Only 2 other members, cousins, of his 60 member family had survived the Holocaust. He eventually made his w a y t o a n o r p h a n a g e i n M a r i e n b a d . T h i s w a s t h e beginning of a long road to recovery. Some of the physical scars had healed, but it was the scars that weren’t apparent that would take the most time. The kindness the employees at the orphanage treated him the exact o p p o s i t e o f w h a t h e h a d e x p e r i e n c e d d u r i n g t h o s e torturous months in Auschwitz. He was able to regain faith in humanity and three years later, in October 1949, he moved to Canada where he met his wife and had two boys of his own. Now 83, and a grandfather of 2 girls, Max openly speaks about his experiences during the Holocaust with the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center is a global human-‐rights NGO, with ofVices in New York, Toronto, Miami, Paris, Buenos A i r e s a n d J e r s u a l e m . T h e organization works to confront anti-‐semitism, terrorism and hate as well as promoting human rights, dignity and genocide e d u c a t i o n . U s i n g s p e c i V i c examples from the genocides in
Rwanda, Sudan and Europe, the center holds interactive genocide e d u c a t i o n s e m i n a r s a n d workshops.
! “The history of ! ! m a n i s t h e ! history of crimes, ! ! and history can ! r e p e a t . S o ! ! information is a ! defense. Through ! ! this we can build, ! we must build, a ! ! defense against ! repetition.” ! !
The inspiration for The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center founder Rabbi Marvin Hier was the story of Simon Wiesenthal. The now passed, S i m o n W i e s e n t h a l , w a s a holocaust survivor who lost 92 members of his family during the war. He was trained as an architect and was a very skilled drawer. This useful and life-‐ saving gift meant he was forced to draw pictures of Nazi ofVicials. Barely alive and weighing less than 100 pounds, Wiesenthal was liberated on May 5th 1945. He d e d i c a t e d h i s f r e e l i f e t o collecting archives of documents and pictures of the Holocaust and h u n t i n g d o w n t h e N a z i perpetrators. Wiesenthal wanted to ensure that the victims were never forgotten and that no one could deny the existence of the Holocaust or refute the evidence he had collected.
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Simon once said “The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.” Education is precisely what the centre and Max works towards. He works to preserve the history of the Holocaust and counters anyone who claims that the Holocaust never happened. Being one of the few remaining survivors, Max also makes the s t a t i s t i c s p e r s o n a l . H av i n g experienced both the worst and the best of humanity, Max strives towards a world free of racism and hate. He hopes that the young people of today will do the same. The only way we can prevent genocide in the future is if everyone knows about the effects of genocide. After every genocide the world has said “never again”, yet they continue. With education, we can Vind the answers to the questions that must be asked of genocide. Why does it happen again and again? Are people inherently evil? Who h a s t h e p o w e r t o s t a r t a genocide? Who has the power to stop it? Why don’t they use that power? Why do people turn away when they see something ugly and pretend as if they didn’t notice? Let’s not let history repeat itself again.
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Tables are prepared for the first seating.
Cooking lunch. ! Looks gooood!
! Character Profile:
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Ben Ly
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D M : W h a t d o e s T h e S c o t t basis, homeless shelters and soup Mission do?
kitchens wouldn’t be able to
i t h t h e c r a z y, b u s y Ben: The Scott Mission does a lot continue running. They depend
schedule Ben Ly has right now, of work for the poor, it’s an on the volunteers to help prepare you’d think he’d be too tired to organization that provides six hot the food. I mean, The Scott talk. He’s a high school student in meals a week, daily bagged Mission is serving over 175 meals t h e H . E . L . P ! p r o g r a m , a lunches, groceries, laundry and a day! And providing the less v o l u n t e e r, a M c D o n a l d ’ s hygiene facilities a low-cost fortunate with a nutritious meal, employee and an avid cyclist! daycare and after-school and means you’re lowering their The day before this interview, he over night programs. In the susceptibility to sickness, you’re was volunteering at The Scott summer they also run a summer improving their quality of life, Mission, so we caught up with camp for youth and retreats for which could result in lower rates him to ask him how he likes the adults.
of violence. So, you know, there
H.E.L.P! program and the
are a ton of other factors that you
volunteer experiences.
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DM: So you’ve been in the H.E.L.P! program for half a semester now, how are you liking
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don’t even immediately see.
! I love all of the volunteering
it? Ben: I absoluetly love it. When I
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was in normal school, I would look forward to the weekend and it could never come fast enough.
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DM: What kind of an impact did volunteering have on yourself ? Ben: I think that volunteering actually had a greater impact on me than those that we serve. Um, before I started volunteering I definitely held certain sterotypesand most people hold these
Now I’m looking forward to the D M : W h a t j o b s d i d y o u sterotypes, even though they don’t participate in when volunteering? want to admit it- and now those weekdays. Ben: Our facilitator, Alex, got us sterotypes are broken and I can to help with the first two seatings DM: What’s your favourite aspect of the day. So we prepared the see the person behind the Tim of the program? tables, helped prepare the food, Hortons cup and cardboard sign. Ben: I love all of the volunteering. brought the food to each table, cleaned the tables and then we did Every week we’re someplace DM: What advice can you give to it all over again for the next different, and every week it’s a seating. people who want to start making blast. Just yesterday, March 23rd, a difference? we were actually at The Scott D M : D o y o u t h i n k t h a t Ben: Pick an organization or an
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Mission at 502 Spadina Avenue.
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volunteering at The Scott Mission issue you feel passionate about had an impact on the poor? and volunteer! You learn so much Ben: Yes, of course. Without and make a ton of great friends! volunteers coming in on a daily [13]
The Riverwood Conservancy
Cattails in the bioswale.
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Walking down the trail with binoculars in hand, feels like you’ve stepped out of the city and into the country. This is the magic of Riverwood. It is a forest in the heart of Mississauga, home to over 475 species of plants and animals, including 150 species of both resident and migratory birds. Some of which, we would be seeing. The students were taken on a bird-‐ watching hike led by science teacher, Laura Fanthome, on Friday March 30th,to try and identify which species different species of birds were present and whether or not they were feeding at this time of year. We saw many different species of birds-‐ from chickadees, to robins, to ducks-‐ many more than usual this year, could it have something to do with the warm winter we’ve had? That is precisely what we were trying to discover. The data we collected is important in studying migratory patterns and subsequently, global warming. With all our data collected, we headed back to the Chappell House. Unique to The Riverwood Conservancy is what appears to be a marsh in the middle of a sloping parking lot. This marsh is not simply for vanity, it had a much greater purpose-‐ it is in fact a bioswale designed to remove pollution from runoff water). The cattails were speciVically selected to be planted because they absorb heavy metals, found in Vluids such as oil and antifreeze, and turn them into nutrients. As oil and Vluids seeped out of cars and onto the pavement, they would trickle down to the marsh-‐ thanks to the slope-‐ and be removed from the water cycle thanks to the cattails. To test the effectiveness of the bio swell, the students collected water samples and data-‐ including soil moisture, outside t e m p e ra t u re , d e p t h o f wa te r a n d wa t e r temperature. The students then performed the same tests on the marsh connected to a swamp beside the parking lot. The swamp was also connected to the Credit River, so the student’s also tested the Credit River. Through scientiVic study, we can learn how effective the bio swell is and how we affect nature and ourselves (water we drink) through our pollution. We collected data that will help show the effectiveness of the bio swell, the deer study and the effects of global warming on birds.
The Riverwood Conservancy is a charity established in 1985 providing programs to the Mississauga community in environmental education and stewardship, gardening and horticulture. They are in the process of conducting a deer study, tracking the number of white-‐tailed deer, their behavior, habitat and migratory range.
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Ben Ly feeds a chickadee.
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The Lorax (2012)
! (out of 4) ! Starring: Danny Devito, Zac Efron, Betty White and Taylor Swift ! Release Date: Friday, March 2 , 2012 ! Directed by Chris Renaud ! nd
(Dr. Seuss’ would-‐be 108th birthday)
Rated: G
D r. S e u s s ’ c r i t i c a l l y acclaimed children’s story, The Lorax, has come to life on the big screen. The Vilm’s plot has been expanded upon to create the 94-‐ minute movie from the original 45-‐ page story. In the Vilm, the citizens of Thneedville are as happy as can be, living in a world where everything is made of plastic. Thneedians must purchase clean, bottled air from Mr. O’Hare (Rob Riggle) because of their town’s smog problem. Ted (Zac Efron) tries to impress the girl of his dreams, Audrey (Taylor Swift), when he learns that she wants to have a real-‐live truffula tree-‐ which have all long been extinct-‐ growing in her backyard. With the push from his Grammy Norma (Betty White), Ted sets out to Vind the Once-‐ler (Ed-‐Helms) who allegedelly knows what happened to all the truffula trees. Travelling through the forbidden fringes outside the town’s artiVicial, locked walls, Ted Vinds the Once-‐ler. He tells Ted through colourful Vlashbacks and musical numbers (with John Poewll’s vibrant score), the story of how he cut down all the truffula trees to mass produce his Thneeds-‐ a creation that you just, must have-‐ from the silken tops of the truffula t r e e s d e s p i t e t h e r e p e a t e d [19]
attempts to stop him from the Lorax (Danny Devito), guardian of the forest. T h e V i l m s u c c e s s f u l l y explains numerous complicated issues such as capitalistic greed, the power of huge corporations a n d t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f environmental stewardship in a manner children can understand and appreciate.
! “Unless someone ! like you cares a ! whole awful lot, ! ! nothing is going ! to get better. It’s ! ! not.” !
The students of the H.E.L.P! program saw the Vilm on opening day at the AMC theatre at Yonge and Dundas Square. They found the Vilm inspirational, as they will be writing a children’s story of their own, explaining a complex issue in food for their human right’s course culminating activity. The H.E.L.P! program was founded and taught by Mr. James Scott Neil, who educates his students on social justice and environmental issues on a local and global level through experiential learning.
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