Lauren Kraetschmer delicately cuts up vegetables into bite-size pieces for a bubbling pot of soup. She also stirs sizzling Bavarian sauerkraut decked with peaches. But her favourite part of dinner preparations are the breaded dumplings. “It was funning chopping them up and making them into balls,” she said.
Nearly 21 years ago, a bullet fired from a gun in Somalia cracked through the air and ricocheted into Abdi Dini’s back.
It pierced his spinal cord between his shoulder blades, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. For life.
When his daughter Lindsey, 23, was in elementary school, Dr. Ashleigh Molloy attended a parent-teacher interview and experienced a type of labeling that he will never forget. “I said, ‘Hi I am Dr. Ashleigh Molloy and she said, ‘Oh, you have a Down Syndrome daughter. So I responded, Oh Mary, you must be mistaken,” he said.
“That’s one of our problems when we start hiring employees,” Kevin Stanley said. “A good chunk of the population is scared of heights, so we have to sift through the remainder of those who are not.”
“TEGH has always been near and dear to my heart,” said John Papastergiou. “My father was treated there for cancer. He’s a cancer survivor.”
“Before the mainstream view of skateboarding, where it is more accepted by the community, we were viewed as hoodlums and almost vilified,” Everett Maclean said.
Norma Campbell, now nearing retirement, insists that this is “something the public should be aware of,” despite the risk to her job for speaking with the press.
“We want to encourage other people to make boards,” Norah Hunter said. “The process is so doable that we want people to come in and create their own brand. After learning the steps, really, anyone can do it.”
“It’s just the act of somebody spending an hour caring for us,” said Janet Zenwirt. “There is that sense of touch that we crave as humans.”
Elizabeth Novak said she worries about the effect the past winter is going to have on the Todmorden Mills preserve. There are 94 documented bird species frequenting the area, and with the unusual winter, their migratory pattern has been affected.