Don McCallum, Jennifer Guillemette and Cathy McCallum are the YMCAs 2008 Peace Medallion winners.
‘The power of peace…the power of people,’ that is this year’s theme for Peace week for YMCAs across Canada and the YMCA of North Bay celebrated three individual who have made a positive impact in other people’s lives during a Peace Proclamation Ceremony Monday.
The ceremony, which is a special highlight of the week which runs from November 15-22, awards the YMCA Peace Medal to an individual or group who, without any special resources, demonstrate a commitment to peace through special contributions made within their community or overseas.
Grade 10 Chippewa student Jennifer Guillemette received a peace medal for her work with the Best Buddies program, Volunteer Now, and the Senior Intergated Program.
Guillemette says she is very excited about how the Best Buddies program is shaping up at the high school and recognises the important role it will play in furthering an understanding and acceptance in the high school.
“I think it is necessary because they don’t have the same opportunities that we have to build friendships with people because they are separated from everybody, they have their own classrooms and they only get to see each other,” she says of the Senior Intergrated Program students.
“So I think that it is important for them to get out to the classroom and to see all of the other students and have the opportunity to hang out with all the other students and get that high school experience.”
Joining Guillemette in the distinguished recipients category are Don and Cathy McCallum and they were honoured for their work in the community as well as in Africa.
Cathy McCallum credits previous Peace Medal Recipient Sandy Foster for opening a new chapter in her life by recruiting her for Team Tumaini. Below is the text of McCallum’s thoughts on the receiving the medal.
Don and I are truly touched and honoured by being recipients of this year's Peace Medallion and we are absolutely delighted to be sharing this honour with Jennifer Guillemette, an amazing young lady who is undertaking a wonderful program for intellectually challenged youth at Chippewa Secondary School (I do have a soft spot for Chippewa).
Through media coverage, through the internet, our world has become smaller and the problems, challenges and often sufferings of others, once thought far away, are now closer and more visible to us. It is hard not to take action, not to become involved, not to try and make a difference in someone else's daily realities.
Don and I are both very fortunate that because of the initiatives and passion of Sandy Foster, who is a past recipient of this honour, we have had the opportunity to join Team Tumaini and with the support of many, many North Bay citizens and groups such as the YMCA, Rotary, Trinity United Church, work together as global citizens to bring “hope" to the families, to the communities and to the children in Kenya - and it is about the children. To see a hungry child's eyes light up because now there is food and to know that the amount of food will be enough to sustain the family until the next harvest is a gift that we wish we could share with everyone here. We saw this several times over, as we bagged over 33,000 pounds of food and distributed it to three areas where food was scarce and many had not eaten for days before we came. We wish you could hear the singing of widows and grandmothers and see the joy of their children who received uniforms knowing that now they too can go to school and have the opportunities that come from having an education and we wish you could share in the smiles and hugs from a group of HIV infected widows and grandmothers because they have received the supplies and sewing machines necessary to set up small sewing businesses that will allow them to earn their own money to support their children as well as other orphans in their community which is Kibera, the largest slum in all of Africa - over a million people surviving in a sewer. Today as we are here in North Bay, we know that over 120 young children will get a lunch at their school - we know this because we, Team Tumaini, raises funds to feed these children lunch every day, even holidays, every month of the year. Before this they were not in school, malnourished, but today their 'bellies' are fuller.
To be recognized by the YMCA on this, World Peace Week, when Don and I both feel we have been given so many gifts such as the ones that have just been described, is truly humbling, and we thank you. On this day, the beginning of World Peace week, I am reminded that no matter where we live we are all part of one community - one world - or if I had my Dreamcoat Fantasy Theatre hat on I would say 'one stage' and we all have a part to play- and hopefully by combining our resources, talents, creativity and efforts, we will make this a better, happier, healthier and safer world for all. Thank you.
Please note: Information furnished to BayToday indicated that Jennifer Guillemette was a volunteer of the PADDLE Program in fact she is a volunteer with the Senior Intergated Program.
