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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Toronto born,  LA-based Caterina Scorsone prepared for her role as the brilliant but drug-addicted Dr. Amelia Shepherd on the hit television show Private Practice by spending time with members of The Good Neighbours’ Club, a Toronto day centre for older men who are homeless or marginally housed.

Her father, Dr. Bruno Scorsone, is the Executive Director at the club, and Caterina has witnessed firsthand the hope and despair of club members, some of whom, like the character she plays, are battling their way back from addiction to a better life. You can see Caterina Scorsone on the morning of December 29 on Breakfast Television Toronto where she will talk about the show, the club and how one inspired her work on the other.

The Good Neighbours’ Club is the last refuge for many. Without adequate housing, it is the one place they can turn to for showers, clothing, a place to lock up what few valuables they may have, medical care, food, companionship and compassion. It is open from 8am until 5pm, giving members somewhere safe to go in the day, away from the violence and temptations of the street.  The club makes final arrangements for the men when there is no one to do that for them.

By the time a marginally housed or homeless man is 50, he is physiologically closer to 70 in age. The stress of a nomadic life is extraordinary and in economic times such as these, and it’s only getting worse. A jobless recovery has seen more pressure on The Good Neighbours’ Club even as budgets are being cut. The desperately poor and mentally ill are being pushed into even worse circumstances even as the services that could help them are being eviscerated.

These are cruel times.

But, amidst the hardship, there are flashes of great kindness. And as bright a light as Caterina Scorsone is on screen, so is she off, and she is using her Christmas holiday to help the club. She joins a list of luminaries who this year have given so generously of their time and talents, including Citytv’s Roger Petersen, CTV News Toronto’s  Joe Tilley, Senator Art Eggleton, The Honourable Glen Murray, Sheldon Levy, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam and many others.

It is easy to look the other way. It is much harder to look in the eyes of someone in trouble and say “I see you, I know you are in pain and though it is not much, let me stand with you for this short time so you will know that you are not alone.”

Thank you to Caterina Scorsone, Roger Petersen, and everyone who has supported The Good Neighbours’ Club this year. Special thanks go to Dr. Bruno Scorsone, Dr. David Bruce, Lauro Monteiro and all the staff and support workers who give so tirelessly of themselves to help those others have forgotten.

They are all gifted, skilled people who would make so much more in the private sector, but who have chosen to live their lives in accordance with their beliefs and consciences.

We at Babble On Communications have been grateful once again this year to lend our support to this most worthy cause. We join Caterina Scorsone this Christmas in hoping you will consider making a donation to The Club at http://goodneighboursclub.org/how-you-can-help-1/how-you-can-help.html

About The Good Neighbours’ Club:

Funded largely by the United Way of Greater Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Health and the City of Toronto, The Good Neighbours’ Club is assisted by the Daily Bread Food Bank, Second Harvest, Whole Foods Market and Torontonians who realize that these men could be their fathers, their brothers, their sons or even themselves. For more information about The Good Neighbours’ Club please visit www.goodneighboursclub.org

About Private Practice:

Created by Shonda Rhimes, the Golden Globe-winning creator of Grey’s Anatomy, comes the story of a team of gifted doctors working together to change the lives of their patients for the better as they look to one another for friendship and love. The doctors of Oceanside Wellness and Pacific Wellcare work on the most difficult cases, patients whose medical needs often pose moral and ethical dilemmas. Private Practice is executive-produced by Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Off the Map), Betsy Beers (Grey’s Anatomy, Off the Map), Mark Gordon (The Hoax, Saving Private Ryan), Mark Tinker (St. Elsewhere, NYPD Blue), Steve Blackman and Craig Turk. Private Practice is an ABC Studios Production. For more information, please visit: http://abc.go.com/shows/private-practice

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Mickey had been dragged to a kids event featuring popular children’s entertainers by his daughter. When he saw the kind of crowds show attracted, he thought he’d better learn more about it and see if it was a fit for his business.

Here he was, the captain of a Fortune 500. He didn’t send a marketing or PR person to check it out or cross reference pie charts with info graphs to come up with his answer. He went out, spent a nice day with his daughter, and talked to people in the crowd and involved with the event, but never as Mickey Drexler, the “merchant prince” (as he was nicknamed in the press) but just as a dad, some guy in the crowd, asking interesting questions.

Those questions resulted in him sponsoring our client’s event for the following year.  And I got to see a glimpse into how he worked and thought.

Mickey Drexler has, I believe, what Stanford University psychologist and author Carol Dweck in her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success“  calls a “growth mindset.” I say that because in my time with him, limited as it was, he was more about listening than talking, more about sharing ideas than being right. And he loved to talk with everyone — not at them, but really with them.

If you haven’t read Dweck’s book (and I recommend it highly), it contends that there are two types of people in the world: those with “fixed mindsets” and those with “growth mindsets.”

People with a growth mindset seek to always learn. They try not to see setbacks as failures or new ideas as threats. They are instead opportunities for growth and portals to new ways of doing things better.

People with “fixed mindsets” seek to blame others in the face of failure and position themselves to be right no matter what, even if it means rejecting people or ideas that can help their companies, projects or ideas. Any new way of thinking or of looking at an old problem isn’t a possibility; it’s a personal and professional affront.

The book was written five years ago or so and talks about the failures of leadership at some companies like Enron. It also looks at leaders who have turned companies around, not by knowing everything but rather, by being curious about how everything works from all the stakeholders perspectives, including those on the lowest rungs of the corporate ladder, and even from dissatisfied customers.

Leaders like that learn by NOT knowing everything and by celebrating that fact. They actively seek to see the world differently, and surround themselves with those who aren’t afraid to tell them what they probably won’t want to hear.

Really bold leaders reward dissent because they recognize that being told what they want to hear does not lead to breakthroughs or growth. Innovation and growth require awkward conversations with people who have different, sometimes contradictory ideas.

Here in Canada, we have an extraordinary social experiment called The Centre for Social Innovation, otherwise known as CSI. And yes, my American friends, we spell “center” “centre” – that’s just how we roll.  It was founded by Tonya Surman, an Ashoka Fellow and creative thinker determined to realize a better world.

CSI is premised around the idea that a shared space populated by diverse people with very different businesses, ideas and backgrounds will lead to outlandish and new ways of thinking that will better us all and maybe even solve age old problems.

Age old problems require new, radical solutions and fresh approaches. They must. Or we would have solved them by now. They require all involved to adopt a growth mentality, and to move away from a fixed mindset. Fortunately, growth mentality can be learned, and the book suggests how. But one way is by finding and learning from leaders wherever you/we can who embrace tough challenges not by relying on what they already know but by finding out what they can learn from others, even in unlikely places.

The growth mindset is essential for the longterm success of any brand, and given the state of the world right now, it may even be essential for our very survival.

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But she did go, urged on by the memory of Megan’s last days, during which time Megan asked her parents and friends to keep her work raising awareness for childhood cancer research going.

I am forever in awe of the childhood cancer families who work so hard to raise money and awareness to fight the diseases that their children battle(ed). It is agonizing and exhausting for them at times I am sure. And yet they must, because, for some, the only thing worse than sharing their story is not sharing their story.

For those in the battle, research is the only hope. A solution could come soon, perhaps in time for their child. It was only a generation ago that childhood leukemia claimed something like 80 per cent of sufferers. Now the numbers are reversed and climbing, with more than 80 per cent of those battling childhood leukemia surviving. I’ve heard the number quoted higher than 90 per cent in some circles.

These families would almost all rather be doing something else. Most are unpaid, and all are so very tired from the additional burdens that fighting childhood cancer has put on them. They are absolute heroes in my eyes.

None of this takes away from the vital work being done by professional fundraisers, marketers and public relations folks at any medical, research institution or drug company doing what they can to fight childhood cancer or any other disease for that matter. Goodness knows, I am one of them from time to time, and I have been inspired and humbled by extraordinary professionals doing everything they can to advance the cause.

But in my books, the families are heroes of the highest order. There is no profit to be made by drug companies to research certain diseases, all too often, childhood cancers. That’s not a dig. They are businesses and their responsibility in the world as it is now is to make money for their shareholders, and not to solve the world’s ills. It costs billions of dollars to create new drugs, and the money they’ll get back from creating drugs to treat certain childhood drugs won’t cover the investment. So setting up and funding research facilities has actually fallen, in some cases, to families.

Families put their exhaustion, their personal pain, their incredible fear of what might come or grief at what has already transpired aside to work for a day when no one else might endure what they have faced or face now.

And if that isn’t the mark of a hero, I don’t know what is.

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Once, I brought my mother along (former head of public relations for the Metro Toronto Police), and as we were waiting in the green room of the Today Show, Meredith Vieira came out to say hi to whomever was in the greenroom. She fussed over my mother, even though, truthfully, I was the least important person in the room, which I’m sure Meredith knew.

In person, she radiates kindness and warmth in ways you don’t always see in on air hosts, often so very focused on much more important things than what PR person and her mother are in the greenroom. But not Vieira. She is very human, and in superhuman ways.

It exhausts me to think of her schedule. From galas to very early morning calls for the show, she must have so very little time for herself. Her commitment to community recently worked very much to our advantage. Our friends at The Event Group in New York were able to get her to participate in the Solving Kids Cancer Spring Gala, where Megan McNeil was honoured. Megan, you might remember, was a singer who wrote a beautiful song called The Will to Survive, and who advocated for childhood cancer awareness until she died in January at the age of 20 from the cancer she’d fought since she was 16.

Meredith Vieira is leaving to spend more time with her family. She has earned it the chance to rest and to be with the ones she loves more than anyone else in the world. I’m sure she will remain active in causes for which she cares deeply, and continue her work in new, hopefully less taxing ways.

I for one will miss her on air presence very much. And I wish her great joy as she transitions from one life to the other. She is one in a million.

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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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And with the wide variety of tools now available that let people connect their message to others including the media, you accept that some – even many – will go off and try and engage the media and the rest of the world in their issue, brand or story before they’ve done the work, even before they understand the real lay of the land.

This is especially true in the social entrepreneur and not for profit space and anywhere where big-hearted people are tackling important issues, issues they can’t imagine anyone not seeing the value of.

And that’s when things go terribly wrong.

It pains me to see really good people going off on bad PR campaigns simply because they don’t know what they’re doing. “How hard could it be?,” they ask. And then they find out when not only do they not get any traction but they’ve made themselves dismissible with the very people who could have helped them. That’s when they start throwing out words like “conspiracy” and think the media is too scared to touch the story.

Nope. The truth is a whole lot more simple. A hyperbole filled blog laced with emotional slings and arrows but lacking factual evidence will get you labled as a crank, not turn you into a local hero.  A credibly presented, evidence based argument with dignified spokespeople who have poignant stories and can tell them well? That works. It’s harder to create. But well worth it in the end.

The first approach is easy, lazy even. It’s also damaging to your brand. The second takes a lot more work. But it’s effective. And authentic. And that should be the jumping off point, not where you hope to get to after you’ve burned your bridges and have to rebuild a campaign that lies in ruins.

It breaks my heart when bad PR happens to good people. It happens because they usually don’t know any better. And it can end up costing them everything they were fighting for in the first place.

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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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