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STAMFORD KIWANIS IN THE NEWS
WHILE HELPING OUT PROJECT SHARE
Teams from the Stamford Kiwanis took first and second place May 10 at the sixth annual SHARE Grand Prix to benefit Project SHARE. STAMFORD KIWANIS CONTINUE SUPPORT OF BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB
Jim McGregor presents the Stamford Club's bingo fundraising
A life set to music JOHN LAW April 11/2008 She's 76, wearing heels, and still passing people as she hurries to her interview. Marjorie Slinn is late and apologetic for our chat at the Fairview Mall food court, but as the thick date book in her purse can attest, stuff piles up. Stuff like the Stamford Kiwanis Club meeting she just had to leave where, among other things, they discussed her becoming the new lieutenant-governor of Division 6. Then she has meetings in Toronto to prepare for. Then music classes to teach in the afternoon. Then the annual Kiwanis Music Festival to get in gear. To Slinn, having major eye surgery recently wasn't a sign to slow down. Now she can see more stuff to do. "I've got my health, and that's what is important," she says. "So I'm able to do these things. "I've just been blessed with a high energy. When I'm in something, I'm in it for keeps and I'm doing the best job I can. No point doing a half-hearted job. And I still love what I'm doing. "Who else at the age of 76 is still working in a job they love?" The fact she has been doing this since the 1950s doesn't faze her. The job is the same every year, and it never changes: Instil a love of music in kids. Don't hound them. Don't expect miracles. Don't push them to be professionals. Just go home at night knowing the kids love music more now than the day they met her. "I keep telling her she should be focusing on weaning out herself and weaning somebody in," says Slinn's youngest son, Mark, a fire prevention officer in Niagara Falls. "But she's got herself involved in so many diverse things ..." EVERYONE WHO ever meets Slinn agrees on one thing - there's something different about her. They're right, of course. They were saying that about her in Ottawa when she was the smart 14-year-old from England. To the surprise of teachers at her new school, she had already completed high school back home. They made her do it all over again anyway. Slinn made her point by graduating in just two years. "I had to prove myself," she recalls. She looked at Canada as a vast, exciting place to start over. She didn't even mind that her school uniform was her only clothes. Her parents weren't as excited. They left England after the Second World War and had trouble finding work. They had to swallow their pride and settle for less. They were middle class back in England - in Canada, they were working poor. "My parents never considered Canada home," says Slinn. Her dad eventually got a job at the Spirella Corset Factory in Niagara Falls. After breezing through school, Slinn - at just 17 - entered a teacher's college in Hamilton. She barely had time to enjoy being a teenager. "My first teaching job was at the age of 17. "I was in a rural school as part of my training, and one of the guys tried to make a date with me. I said, 'No, no, I'm your teacher.'" Slinn wanted to teach older kids. Specifically, she wanted to teach them music. But the school board had no openings, and only offered her kindergarten classes. She reluctantly accepted. While other kids her age were still in high school, Slinn was a full-fledged teacher. She recalls "screaming kids and anxious mothers" her first day. "My words to them were ... please go. Your child will survive with me." Slinn ended up teaching for 25 years, eventually branching off into music instruction. It was her dream gig. "The trouble with teaching full days, I was getting too many students and it was getting really hairy because I had children of my own to look after," she says. "So one of the things had to go - I had to go into full-time music or full-time teaching. "So, I thought I'll combine my teaching career with music, and I never regretted it." Slinn still taught half days, then gave one-on-one music instruction at night. The classrooms are long gone. But the teaching never stopped. She taught the choir at Stamford United Church, where she has been for decades. She taught the Harmony Singers, a group for youths she started in 1974. She taught the handbell ringers of the Niagara Bell Choir, her latest project formed two years ago. And she still teaches kids music one-on-one in her home six days per week. It's still her greatest joy, and likely her legacy in Niagara Falls arts and culture. "Most kids were born with voices or born with the ability to play, and they just needed somebody to say, 'OK, let's do it.' I just push them, and bless their hearts a lot of the things I taught are still with them. "My job was never to make any of them famous or professional. It's just, they had the talent and could do it." Canadian opera star Brett Polegato is her most famous star pupil. On the phone from Toronto, where he's starring in the Canadian Opera Company's production of "Eugine Onegin," Polegato recalls Slinn's passion for music making a huge impression. "(She had) a joy of just making music, which may sound like a basic requirement for being in the arts but it's not always a quality you find in people" he says. "I always admired her for her tremendous energy and professionalism." Polegato, like many of Slinn's former students, still keeps in touch with regular e-mails. "The fact all of the singers in the youth choir called her Mum Slinn says it all. She really was like a second mother to all of us." The next slate of youths await at this year's Kiwanis Music Festival, starting April 21. Another Polegato could be among them. Or simply a kid who wants to try singing before finding his real niche. They're all equal in Slinn's eyes. "They all become my kids." Growing up in the Slinn household meant two things, recalls Mark - lots of kids and lots of music. Slinn's husband, Bob, who died three years ago, supported her classes even if they stretched into dinner. "I just recognized that there was a lot of people who looked to her sort of as a mother figure too." Adds Polegato: "I think the thing she saw in me, and what she sees in people she wants to help, is just a desire. "The desire to make music. I think, for her, that's enough." Slinn scoffs at any talk of slowing down, even if her family jokes she already has her funeral music picked out. Even after 50 years, there's still too much to do. She simply can't imagine the day a young musician looks to her for help and she can't give it. "Once my health or eyesight starts to fail ... then I'll stop. Or when I can't remember the hymns. "But you know, once you're busy your brain does not go to sleep." jlaw@nfreview.com
Kiwanis Club contributes $250,000 to Boys and Girls Club drive BY JENNIFER PELLEGRINI Many of the young people who walk through the doors of the Boys and Girls Club of Niagara Falls are at a crossroads. And so it was for Mike Higham. But while many of the youngsters who take part in activities at the Culp Street facility are at a point in their lives when they can either blaze their own trail or follow a path set by their friends, Higham wasn't a preteen in need of direction. "When I graduated from high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. Working at the Boys and Girls Club gave me that focus and direction in life," said Higham, who is now 23 and a graduate of Mohawk College's Social Services program. Like most kids growing up in Niagara Falls, Higham took part in programs at the Boys and Girls Club while he was in elementary school. But once he turned 13 and was too old for the programs, Higham moved on to other things. It wasn't until he was well into high school that the Boys and Girls Club entered his life again. In search of a co-op placement, Higham spent a semester at the club before returning in the spring as a full-fledged employee running some of the youth programs. That job filled a two-year gap between Higham's graduation from high school and decision to pursue a career in social work as an adult. When he headed off to school Higham was presented with a $1,000 scholarship from the Boys and Girls Club in partnership with the Raptors Foundation. He received a $2,000 scholarship the following year from Future Shop and the Boys and Girls Club of Canada. With another gap in his education (Higham plans to return to school to become a student counsellor or a social worker within the education system), Higham has returned to the club, doing everything from running programs to driving the bus to get kids there. "I'll be starting to work at the day care soon," he said. Like everyone involved with the club, Higham looks forward to the day when students are running and playing in a new facility. The current one - built in 1960 by the Optimist Club - has been expanded over the years, but has outlived its purpose. With limited space for parking, further expansion to accommodate more kids and a 21st-century lifestyle are all but impossible. A new 33,000-square foot building - with a proposed location of A.G. Bridge Park just across the street - will allow more young people to access more programs, said Jeff Wallis, chairman of the $5-million capital campaign. Although it is currently in its silent phase while the United Way holds its annual push for funding for programs - including the Boys and Girls Club - the group recently received a $250,000 donation from the Kiwanis Club of Stamford, which has been a longtime supporter. That brings the total amount of pledges to $750,000 - nearly one-fifth of the campaign goal. Like the Boys and Girls Club, Kiwanis puts all of its emphasis on children, said Don Graham, a member of the Kiwanis Club of Stamford and a past president on the Boys and Girls' Club's board of directors. "Children are Priority 1," said Graham, whose own two children took part in Boys and Girls Club activities over the years. His daughter Laurie, who has a number of physical and developmental challenges, took part in the PALS program there when she was a child. "It was one of the few places for kids like Laurie," Graham said. "It was very much an interactive program. There were games, music, that sort of thing. There really were not a lot of programs available back then." His son Derek, now in teachers' college in Australia, also took swimming lessons and played in the sports and recreation programs offered by the club. "He enjoyed all those things," Graham said. But Graham's connection goes back even farther than his own kids' membership in the club. "I think it goes back to 1980," said Graham. Over the years, he said, Kiwanis has done a lot of the Boys and Girls Club, from helping subsidize the membership fees for underprivileged kids to offering money to bolster the number of staff in the summer. "The club is full of good role models," he said. "And it's good to be able to get the kids off the street and into programs." Bill Walters, another Kiwanis Club member who has served as president of the Boys and Girls Club, agrees. "Kiwanis has always focused on children, and (the club has) always been a huge supporter of the Boys and Girls Club," he said. "We've been a major funder of their day care, we've contributed to the accessible playground and Kiwanis has helped rejuvenate the wading pool." The $250,000 donation - which will be raised through the Kiwanis Sunday night TV bingo - is another example of helping kids in the community by helping an organization that helps kids. "It benefits so many children," Walters said of the Boys and Girls Club. "The impact it has had on so many children is remarkable."
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