Free Portraits for Those Who are Less Fortunate

Here is a wonderful idea! Click HERE to read more and see the image.

Photographers in Winnipeg are set to bring smiles to the faces of some of the city's less fortunate residents.

Help Portraits is a global movement that provides free professional portraits.

In the past, Winnipeg photographers associated with Help Portraits operated out of schools.

This year, they are setting up at Siloam Mission, Win Gardner Place and Agape Table.

Photographer Ian McCausland says it's a great way for families to create holiday memories.

"Especially when there's younger people and kids involved, I think there's important value to having the opportunity or occasion to recognize your family," McCausland said.

Now that is an idea rooted in compassion.

Holding Hands from The Cradle to the Grave

In my neighbourhood, we have two community centres, Dovercourt Recreation Association and the Jewish Community Centre (JCC). Some years ago, I was a trustee on the board of Dovercourt, so I know that centre well. I wrote about it in my book, "The Four Walls of My Freedom", as an example of how neighbourhoods can be compassionate places. But lately, I've been taking dance classes at the JCC and I've been paying attention to the many things this community centre is doing right.

Both of these organizations have undertaken to support the mind, body, and health needs of their constituents from cradle to grave. How does that look in action? Dovercourt has a 'kinder care' or childcare playroom where the staff know every child and their parents by name. Newborns and their mothers can take Mum and Me exercise classes in the gym, then be cuddled by kinder care staff while their Mums share a coffee in the adjoining lounge area. Between the regular swimming lessons in the pool, there is post-stroke aqua and aqua arthritis. I used to bring Nicholas to the special swim times for people with disabilities if he was feeling a little more delicate than usual. Otherwise, I brought him to family swims along with his sister and we all splashed around with the neighbourhood kids. Of course, after swimming, the kinder care staff would set up a video for him to watch so I could grab a coffee or have a chat with friends.

In 1998, our community suffered the ravages of "The Great Ice Storm". A great swathe of eastern Canada and the United States lost power - tons of freezing rain crushed the entire electric grid of the region, including our neighbourhood. Dovercourt was a designated emergency shelter and many families camped there, thankful for the powerful generator which provided heat, light and hot meals. Because of my son Nicholas' health needs, we were allotted a hotel, but we hung out at Dovercourt during the day with our friends. Everyone pulled their weight to make it easier for those with young babies or those who needed extra help due to age or infirmity. Here is a newspaper photo of Nicholas with friends at Dovercourt during the Ice Storm!

The Jewish Community Centre takes its neighbourhood compassion very seriously. The Hillel Lodge long term care facility for seniors sits comfortably beside the main Soloway JCC where a preschool, pool, gym and fitness classes are located. In the evenings, classes on Jewish culture and cuisine are on offer and there is a library for browsing or research. Family services are next door in another building that houses social work and the administrative offices for Tamir, an agency that runs group homes for Jewish adults with disabilities. Everyone is welcome at the JCC, but all their programmes reflect a mindfulness that cultural identity is the heartbeat of their community.

Why do I love these two centres of neighbourhood compassion? They see families in the most holistic way possible. Helping people live happy, healthy lives from cradle to grave is an idea that I believe commands great respect. It's an idea that I will keep coming back to, as I post my thoughts on this blog between visiting my 90 year old mother in Montreal, helping my son settle into his new group home, going to fitness classes and enjoying my extended family which now includes two infants. Personally, I'm closer to the grave than the cradle, but I know one thing: we are ALL in this together.

Fear and Kindness

Most people can imagine themselves being helpful and kind. So, what stops us when we are presented with the choice to act vs to ignore an obvious need? I think it is fear. Take, for example, this story of a kind intention acted upon from my husband's cousin, Patricia.

"Back in September, Lily (my infant daughter) came down with a horrible stomach flu. A few days later, on a Sunday morning, I awoke to the same. Mom was at the cottage, Drazen, Lily's Dad, had to work, and I was alone, incapacitated, with my 2-year-old. Needless to say, I was unable to care for Lily as I hunkered down in the bathroom, on the throne with a bucket in my lap. Lily was distraught at seeing her mom in such shape and I was beside myself because I couldn't care for her. Then came the call from Bernadette! Lily's BFF is Victoria, a friend she made at daycare and whose mother, Bernadette, has become a good friend of mine. A new friend who I already knew was a good friend, but proved to be a friend who went above and beyond the call of duty. When Bernadette heard what kind of shape I was in, she instructed me to dress Lily and pack a bag for her. She took Lily all day Sunday and overnight IN ADDITION to caring for her own rambunctious 2-year-old! Needless to say, it takes nerves of steel and a heart of gold to willingly step forward and volunteer for such duty. I was so relieved that I cried. It's a very scary feeling when you realize that you can't fulfill your child's needs - even more so when you can't leave the bathroom! Thanks to Bernadette, I was able to get over the nasty bug, rest and have peace of mind that my child was being well cared for and loved, with people with whom she is comfortable and loves in return. I will never forget Bernadette's kindness and will never hesitate again to offer my help to someone else in need."

Bernadette acted fearlessly. She wasn't afraid to offer help and she wasn't afraid to take a two year old into her home not knowing whether she would cry in the night. A lot of other people might be afraid to offer help for fear of giving the impression that perhaps that offer might infer that the sick mother could not look after her own child. And perhaps another person might worry that her own family would receive a tiny house guest with a flood of grumpy criticism. Any one of these reasons would lead to inaction and an effort afterwards to forgive oneself for not helping out. And these reasons for not helping another might be very compelling and of course, self-care is the course that we need to take sometimes. But what interests me here are the levers for action and inaction in helping a neighbour. I think one of those of those levers is fear and the extent to which a person is capable of saying "oh to heck with it - I'll just do it".

It would appear from Patricia's story that one unanticipated outcome of a compassionate neighbourhood is that the person on the receiving end of kindness will likely 'pay it forward'. This cycle is starting to look like active citizenship - perhaps we have a moral responsibility to act on behalf of the other, if we possibly can. Next up: another story about paying it forward with surprising results.

Compassion-Action

Recently, a toddler in China was hit by a car, twice, and 18 pedestrians walked past her without coming to her aid. The little girl later died in hospital. Many Chinese are now wringing their hands, wondering what became of their moral compass and the imperative to 'help thy neighbour'.

Last week, I visited my mother in Montreal. My Mum will be 90 years old on Christmas Eve this year and she is still living the high life - cigarettes, rum and coke and chocolate all keep her going. We were chatting about the awful event in China and that got us talking about kindness or a glaring lack of compassion that people had shown our family over the years. In 1972, my Dad had the first of three strokes that would rob him of movement in his right side as well as his speech. "Nothing like a catastrophe to show you who you friends are", my Mum used to say. Some of my father's best friends never came to visit. Perhaps they were afraid of my Dad's silence, or of the fact that he embodied illness and possibly mortality. But others did come. One of those was a short, slight gentleman called Bernie Yorgan. Bernie was more of a golfing acquaintance - he was a bachelor, possibly gay, very gentle and unassuming. Bernie arrived one day at our door with a gigantic leather case - it contained a cello. Bernie played his cello for my Dad in our living room quite often. Sometimes Dad closed his eyes and even fell asleep, but Bernie took that as a compliment.

Our neighbours down the street were not really friends at all. We knew them to say Hello, but nothing more. One day, after Dad's second stroke, our neighbour rang our doorbell. He offered to build a ramp for my Dad's wheelchair. His wife offered to clean our house. We didn't have much money in those days and my Mum thanked them for their kindness, but said that we couldn't afford their services. The ramp was installed and the house was cleaned after the couple convinced my mother that they could not possibly accept any money for their gifts.

In this blog, I want to talk about the triggers that compel us to compassionate action and those circumstances that cause us to look away or avoid stepping into the breach of helpfulness. But for now, I want to reminisce and tell stories of what has been most helpful to people in times of pain and trouble. What is your story?