I don’t know what I was thinking, shooting video of myself beside a beautiful Hollywood starlet at 5am, but I did. Caterina Scorsone and I are both supporters of The Good Neighbours’ Club, a day centre for men who are 50 and over and who are homeless or marginally housed.

Caterina’s father, the amazing Dr. Bruno Scorsone, is the club’s Executive Director. My mother, Adrienne McLennan, who was at one time the highest ranking woman and highest ranking civilian on any police force in Canada, is the chair of the board.

If you’d like to join us in supporting The Good Neighbours’ Club, please donate here. To learn more about Caterina Scorsone, please click here.

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Caterina Scorsone being interviewed by Citytv about The Good Neighbours' Club

“I like your Santa Claus, Joe,” I said of the pin attached to the pocket of a man I’d just met at The Good Neighbours’ Club, a day club for older men who are homeless or marginally housed.

“I love Christmas” he said, grinning ear to ear. “I’ve been a member of the club for years and I come every December 25. We both do,” he said pointing to a friend sitting across from him who was clearly more interested in the turkey and stuffing than conversation. “it’s wonderful,” Joe added.

Joe wearing his Santa pin

The Good Neighbours’ Club is open 365 days a year, and gives an important sense of community for those who don’t always know where they’ll be sleeping next. The club provides showers, laundry, an address for mail, a place to lock up any valuables, food, clothing, companionship and compassion.

For this Christmas dinner, there were some special surprises, including Caterina Scorsone, one of the stars from ABC’s Private Practice, who served meals to club members. The Good Neighbours’ Club is one of Caterina’s favourite charities, and she had this to say to people about it:

Caterina’s father, Dr. Bruno Scorsone, is the executive director of the Club. He was there with the volunteers, including members of his family, and took time out of the busy Christmas day to talk about why the club is so important to so many:

Volunteers came from all over, including from the congregation formerly lead by Dr. Rev. David Bruce, who is now on staff at The Good Neighbours’ Club. And 50 gifts arrived, donated by the Toronto Police Service and distributed to the men by lottery drawn by Lauro Monteiro who oversees logistics at the club. The police often extend kindnesses to the club. Toronto Police Chief William Blair is The Good Neighbours’ Club vice patron. Lt. Governor David Onley is the Club’s Patron.

Volunteers including Cateraina Scorsone and members from Dr. Rev. David Bruce's former congregation

When the media showed up to do a story about Christmas at the club, Alex, Ray and various other members of the club were grateful for the opportunity to tell Canadians how important the club is to helping them back to a better life.

GNC member talking to the media about how important the club is

People have pre conceived ideas on who may hit times hard enough to use a food bank, become homeless, or need the services of The Good Neighbours’ Club. It’s an irony not lost on many of the members, some of whom were high earning professionals before bad luck, bad choices or bad health brought them to the land of need.

It happens.

I’ve met men there who achieved more in their careers than I could ever hope to but who now rely on The Good Neighbours’ Club for food and clothing. You might think they’d be bitter, but mostly they are grateful that they have somewhere to go every day of the year when they need it, even Christmas.

Members of The Good Neighbours' Club at Christmas dinner

Just because they are homeless or marginally housed does not mean they are without community. They have one, and the club is its hub. If someone hasn’t been by in a while, someone will check up on him. When the body of an older man with no ID turns up, GNC staff and club members help the police figure out who it might be. And when one has good fortune, he tries to help his buddies.

It’s a phenomenon Judy Graves, the recipient of the first Good Neighbours’ Club’s Paul Croutch Award for her work advocating for Vancouver’s homeless, knows very well. She discovered she could not effectively get a vulnerable man housed if he was worried about the friends he was leaving behind to the streets. She had much better success when she could say, “I have found housing for you and for a number of your friends – go round them up.” Then they would go with her.

Homeless advocate Judy Graves with Gerald

There was a recent study that suggests that those experiencing poverty can better recognize and respond to signals of distress in others, leading them to act more kindly and compassionately in certain circumstances. As the study’s lead author Jennifer Stellar said, “These latest results indicate that there’s a culture of compassion and cooperation among lower-class individuals that may be born out of threats to their well-being.”

I can’t speak to the study, but I can tell you that the men at The Good Neighbours’ Club are gentlemanly in an old world way. They hold the door, many of them stand until a lady is seated, and they offer what little they have as a token of thanks for anything you do for them. And when I am in the middle of the room with a perplexed look on my face (a look that I wear a lot regardless of my surroundings), someone inevitably offers help.

Today it was Joe, who volunteered to watch my video gear as I suddenly realized I could not be in two places at once, and had to leave my equipment behind.

When I got back, Joe decided it was time to move on. He didn’t stay for the raffle of the gifts donated by the police. He was there for the food and the companionship, and it was time to give his place to another. Let someone else enjoy what he has already known, and let another more in need have one of the 50 presents to go round.

Joe was content.

Almost.

On his way out, he pressed something into my hand, smiled and said “Merry Christmas.” I opened my hand to find the Santa Claus pin he’d been wearing, the one I’d admired.

Now he was content.

And I who came to give of my time left with far more than I came in with.

Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas.

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B2B public relations, like all PR, has evolved quickly over the last few years. Key decision makers at the companies you’re reaching out to are probably a lot like you. They don’t want a lot of clutter around things they don’t need, especially from people who don’t really understand the nuances of their business. And they don’t want to be interrupted by aggressive, self-involved strangers.

Social media has made more intelligent, targeted communication not only possible, but necessary. Some of what used to be essential in the old PR mix is barely a blip on today’s map. Meanwhile, the line between other departments and Public Affairs seems more blurred than ever.

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There is a fun blog called The Problem with Young People Today is. Full disclosure, I’m related to both Don Mills and his brother York.  The blog, which is frequently Freshly Pressed (chosen by WordPress as a blog of the day) and which gets a substantial amount of traffic, features the musings of an often cranky octogenarian. He rails against young people, like in this post about appropriate behaviour towards the elderly by salespeople.

Don sometimes gets into discussions with youth angry at his position. In the end, they often end up engaged by Don and sometimes even charmed.

Don often takes things to extremes for comic effect. The crafting of it is considered, intentional and meant to provoke and entertain.  It is not just some crank’s opinion. It is a mirror held up to a troubled relationship that has ever been thus: that between the young and the old.

It is the job of youth to rebel, innovate, displace, overthrow, and to challenge. And that’s what they did this past election. They held vote mobs. Yes, Rick Mercer challenged them to do it, but it’s the kids who did it. Young leaders rallied friends and fellow students and made some noise and I’d bet Rick Mercer would be the first to say that the credit should go to them.

I had the great privilege of working a little bit with Jamie Biggar of Lead Now, including on Vote Social, and with our incredibly talented, visionary and hardworking friends over at Communicopia. Jamie inspired me with his sense of purpose, his ability to mobilize and to speak clearly and plainly about his vision. He, like so many youth who stepped forth in the election, is very clearly in charge of his own destiny and envisions a better wrold that I want to work towards and live in.

I think we sometimes have a bias against the young. When young MP’s who had really meant to stand as paper candidates were elected, the backlash against them and their potential as parliamentarians was awful.

“We want more young people and women to get involved in politics, yet when they do engage, we treat them terribly,” said Paula Arab of the Calgary Herald in her article Grow up and Treat Young MP’s with Respect. The only thing worse than the contempt heaped on the candidates was that heaped on those who voted for them. I kept expecting one particularly outraged commentator to start shaking his fist at the home audience, and intone “you’ll rue the day…”

Canada belongs to single mothers and university students every bit as it belongs to political insiders and career politicians. Democracy is not solely for a single gender, a particular age bracket, income bracket, or just for people who practice a in one of a limited number of professions. It is for everyone, and it can, theoretically, witness the election of any eligible citizen, including a young one, or, in the case of this incoming parliament, several young citizens.

Young people challenge us to think differently. To think beyond our own interests. To see the world through more hopeful eyes. They are not yet entrenched in the way things have always been done. Let them look for solutions to problems that have eluded us for years.

The trouble with young people today is…they have the potential to remind us of our responsibility to future generations and the planet. And I for one don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

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He was one of Reader’s Digest Heroes of the Year, named in 2007 for the previous year, along with four others, including Stephen Lewis. His name is Brandon Schupp, and when I met him via Mary Lye and David Stones then at The Childhood Cancer Foundation, Brandon was 13, and wanting to climb a ten thousand foot mountain on behalf of the ten thousand kids in Canada living with cancer. He did, becoming a media sensation, garnering 10′s of millions of media hits and featured on Canada AM 3 times in the span of a few weeks, including from the top of the mountain.

Brandon had been inspired to do his climb by his young friend and neighbour, a little boy who battled neuroblastoma, one of the deadliest of childhood cancers. He tragically lost his battle last year.

Brandon is now 18 and every bit the young man we all believed he’d become. He is going off to college, preparing for what he hopes will be a career in policing. He’ll be a brilliant cop. He is quick on his feet, a pragmatist, and cares about youth. I know this because, good man that he is, he and his mother come visit me once or twice a year, where we get caught up on life and Brandon’s plans for the future. This time, dear friend and colleague Deborah Keegan was also able to join us.

The tradition started when he was 14 and Brandon, of his own volition, saved up his allowance so he could come into Toronto to take me for lunch to catch up for a visit. I can tell you, no lunch ever tasted so good. He is a remarkable young man from a wonderful family, and I am grateful that Brandon and the Schupp-Freeman family have become and remained dear friends over the years.

In Brandon, as in so many of the youth with whom we are privileged to work, I see great hope for the future. And he will be a great future cop wherever he ends up.

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So I had a great time with Bob Ezrin on Canada AM this morning. It started early, as these things do, but it must have felt earlier for Ezrin who’d flown in to Toronto late the night before. Good of him to do it, especially since it’s his birthday today (Happy Birthday Bob!).

In case you’ve been living on a Mennonite farm for the last few decades, Ezrin, who was born in Toronto, is one of Canada’s geatest gifts to the world of music, an iconic producer responsible for some truly seminal works from the rock world, including Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He has recently reunited with Alice Cooper whom he helped establish as one of the biggest stars in the world with such works as School’s Out and Welcome to my Nightmare. Ezrin is currently up for a Juno for K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag.”

Ezrin is an innovator. Someone able to read the pulse of almost anything and know what would make it better. Take the future of the music industry. Frustrated by the caliber of talent being turned out by traditional sound engineering and music business schools, he and legendary producer Garth Richardson (Nickelback, Rage Against the Machine), and teacher Kevin Williams opened Nimbus, a recording arts studio dedicated to turning out music industry professionals ready to work in the music business as it is today, not as it was.

Ezrin, Richardson and Williams are empowering a generation of recording arts professionals to take charge of their own careers, and, at the same time, they’re creating the artists, engineers and administrators they want to hire in the future. Pretty smart, huh?

Speaking of smart, Ezrin makes a pretty good GPS. Now, for the record, I am an excellent driver. I’ve never had a single accident, except for the time I accidentally drove a half ton truck over the car in a Rona parkinglot. But I digress. I’ve never seen Bob behind the wheel but I have seen his backseat driving skills, and they too are excellent. And today, they were particularly necessary as, in a show of bravada, I decided to turn off my GPS prematurely.

As anyone who has ever driven with me knows, I am directionally challenged. I once tried to go two long blocks to the mall near the house where I lived at the time and ended up in a small hamlet some 25 kilometers away. That’s just how I roll. And roll. And roll.

So when I drove past CTV without so much as a glance, despite the fact I’ve been there many, many times, Bob had this to say to me in the greenroom:

And that’s just how he rolls.

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Babble On clients tend not to shy away from the tough subjects and Irvin Waller is certainly no exception.His book new book Rights for Victims of Crime:  Rebalancing Justice (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. – http://irvinwaller.org/) is a must read for anyone who pays taxes. Or anyone  who has ever been a victim of crime. Fall into either of those categories? Even if you didn’t fall into the first, chances are good you fell into the second.

In fact, on average, an American will be a victim of assault 3 times and a woman has a one in five chance of being forcibly raped at some point in her life.   Waller’s  book says the time has come to tip the scales – and the expenditures – decisively in favor of crime victims, Waller argues.

While victims and taxpayers hope that justice and victim assistance will meet their needs but  too often the response from law enforcement and the machinery of criminal justice do not make the victim count. Government spends $225 billion on courts, cops and corrections but only $4 billion on victim assistance and compensation. For every woman accommodated at a transition house, for example, one is turned away. Legislation calling for restitution is ignored and governments do not invest in the proven programs that stop violence.

The time has come, he argues, for the re-allocation of funding, comprehensive laws and constitutional change that guarantee victims the right to safety, to reparation and to justice, while ensuring those rights are judicially respected rather than trumped by offender rights.

And Irvin Waller knows what he’s talking about. He has consulted to attorneys general in more than forty countries, was the founding executive director of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime affiliated with the United Nations, and currently serves as the President of the Oregon-headquartered International Organization for Victims’ Assistance.  A Full Professor at the University of Ottawa who also taught at the State University of New York in Albany, Waller’s first book is the popular “Less Law More Order: The Truth About Reducing Crime,” which shows how to  stop  crime before it happens and shift from misspending on ineffective  ”tough on crime” responses

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It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s been 9 years since my last “James hug” and 10 years since The James Fund was founded by James and his family in a desperate attempt to save his life. James died in December 2001 when he was 8 years old. He has been gone now longer than he spent time on this earth.

But oh what he did with that time.

James didn’t give up, not once. He said “I’m always going to be fighting cancer,” and in fact he is. His parents, Syd and Pam Birrell, and his devoted sister and brother share his memory selflessly, often at times when they’d just rather not.

But they do because James’s story was so powerful, his spirit so strong, and his legacy so important. James was determined that there would be a day when no other child would die of the neuroblastoma that was slowly, painfully killing him.

And the fund that bears his name is getting ever closer to that day for which James fought so desperately.

The James Fund was conceived at a kitchen table and born at a fundraiser at the local church later 10 years ago this Saturday.  A love of space exploration bonded James to Tom Hanks, who is now the Fund’s Honourary Patron. And over the last decade, The James Fund has achieved heights no one though possible, except maybe James:

×          $9 Million into the James Birrell Laboratories

×          Awarded the top neuroblastoma research award in the world

×          Projects in 8 countries, partnering with the brightest cancer scientists in the world

×          Funding research no other agencies will fund

×          25 published articles in leading scientific journals worldwide

×          Assigned to represent Canada on global neuroblastoma committees

×          Umbrella for neuroblastoma families across Canada, fighting to save their kids

×          Running a clinical trial at 5 hospitals across North America

×          Perhaps the greatest hope neuroblastoma families have

To the Birrell family, including Diana Birrell, James’ Aunt and The James Fund’s Executive Director, who work so hard for the end of neuroblastoma, we offer you our heart-felt thanks and appreciation.

But I’ll let two other friends of James’ have the last word. The Kratt Brothers of PBS’s new show Wild Kratts and the Emmy Award-winning Zoboomafoo invited James to the set of the show and became his friend. Because to know James was to be his friend.

The Kratt Brothers Congratulate The James Fund on 10 years

Congratulations, indeed James Fund. You aren’t looking to build careers, get rich or do anything other than save kids. I join you in hoping you have no reason to exist in ten years. But until then, you may just be the best hope that neuroblastoma families have. It’s a good thing that our little James has some mighty big shoulders.

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One morning late September, we had lined up a satellite media tour for Megan with 18 outlets standing by to interview her live on air. She did the first couple, but she wasn’t her usual effervescent self.

I didn’t think too much about it because, truthfully, I wasn’t either. It was, after all, 4:45 in the morning.

Megan said, “you know, some days I wake up and I just don’t feel like telling my story…but today…probably shouldn’t be one of them.”

And she was back, hitting each of her message points, the consumate professional and tireless campaigner for childhood cancer awareness.

Among many other honours and achievements, Megan’s story was selected as one of the best of the year by Canada AM and CBC’s Connect with Mark Kelley named her The Most Inspirational Person of the Year.Not bad for a 20 year old.

Here then is a small sampling of Megan’s efforts to promote the cause of childhood cancer and her two select charities, BCCCPA and The James Fund.

A select sampling of public and press hits for Megan McNeil, her campaign and The Will to Survive.

• Megan Headlined the Music Therapy Ride with Chantal Kreviazuk, covered by Global, CTV, CBC, Vancouver Sun, etc., September 18

• The National “Battling Childhood Cancer” – September 6, 2010

• Surrey North Delta Leader “Bringing Light to a Rare Disease”  September 3, 2010 — Chelsea Haeber

• Komsomolskaya Pravda (in Russian) – September 3 2010 — by

• CBC’s Connect with Mark Kelley “The Will to Survive” — August 20, 2010 — by Marcia Connolly.

• Canada.com “Singer Strives to help Fight Cancer” — August 19, 2010 — by Corrie Peters.

• The Toronto Sun “Cancer Patient’s Song of Inspiration” — August 12, 2010 — by Sharon Lem.

• The Peterborough Examiner “Survivor’s Song Benefits James Fund” — July 29, 2010 — by Andrea Houston.

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