Features

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Arts & Life, Community, Features December 13, 2013

More than cash investment in Toronto youth hockey

With under a minute left, and his team down by one, 11-year-old Matthew Gleeson joins the rush. He skates for the net and sets up his teammate for the tying goal. In the dying seconds of the game, Matthew Gleeson gives a first-hand effort, using second-hand equipment. “If the edge is sharp, that’s good enough. Why do you need to buy top of the line skates?” Robert Gleeson says. Matthew’s father, Robert Gleeson, buys his son’s equipment from Play-It-Again Sports. The store sells used equipment at reasonable prices. Just one way the Gleesons afford the cost of their son’s hockey.

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Arts & Life, Community, Features November 11, 2013

Lights, camera, Leaside

100 Years Inside Leaside will be woven around the life of Walter David Newel, a man who paid the ultimate price for Canada’s freedom. He was killed during a training run in the Second World War. He was born and raised in Leaside, and there are memorials of him throughout the community.

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Features November 11, 2013

Poppy volunteer remembers a father’s military service

This week, Joanne Barden stood at the entrance of the newly opened Target store on Danforth Avenue. She had a box of poppies slung around her neck. “Two young men… they took poppies and made a donation … and they told me they respected our veterans very much, and they respected the military, and I found that extremely rewarding,” Barden said.

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Features November 11, 2013

Holocaust victim relied on music to survive

While some victims of the Second World War consider the Allies their liberators, one Holocaust survivor considers music his liberator.

In 1941, following their eviction from Romania, Joseph Leinburd and his family took all of their belongings with them on a train, endured a death march, then sold most of their belongings for some shelter in Ukraine.

Under such harsh conditions, Leinburd said he relied on his attachment to music, to bring hope during the war.

“I listen to music every night,” Leinburd said. “I do many things that other people in my situation don’t do.”

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Features November 11, 2013

Vets bring permanent wartime look to East York

A former mayor of East York says the Second World War and Canadian vets have left a lasting impression on his community.

Part way through the 1939-1945 war, the Canadian Government faced the task of moving soldiers back into civilian life when hostilities ended. To ease the transition, Parliament passed the Veterans’ Land Act in 1942 to encourage veterans to purchase land and houses throughout Canada.

Alan Redway, the former mayor of East York, believes the Act helped shape East York into a community that relied on veterans for growth.

“After the First World War, there were veterans who built houses in the southeast corner of East York,” he said.