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Apr. 21st, 2005 03:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frandroidI usually find "child-prodigies" and the coverage they get (in that order) quite irritating, but this kid is cool.
A tiny soldier in war on homelessness
Winnipeg girl has raised $200,000
Empire Club's youngest-ever speaker
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
The Empire Club, by its own say-so, is one of our "oldest and largest speakers' forums ... (with) some of Canada's most influential leaders from the professions, business, labour, education and government. ... It has been addressed by more than 2,500 prominent Canadian and international leaders."
Tomorrow's featured guest is Bill Graham, minister of national defence. He'll have a tough act to follow: 9-year-old Hannah Taylor, who today becomes the Empire Club's youngest-ever speaker.
Hannah, pig-tailed and self-possessed — the prospect of facing a couple of hundred people doesn't faze her one bit — is here from Winnipeg with her parents, Colleen and Bruce Taylor, to talk about homelessness.
"There are lots of ways people can help," she says, sitting in the family's room at the Fairmont Royal York hotel. She's sent her parents out while she does the interview "because I get nervous with them listening. Anyway, people can, of course, offer money or food or old clothing or even new clothing to the homeless. Or just be nice to them. Most homeless people are not treated the way they should be. If you can't do anything else, you can make them smile."
It's a nice idea. She's a nice kid. She greets you with a handshake but you part with a hug. You might think, given the attention that's paid to her as she moves from speaking engagement to speaking engagement, that she'd be a brat, full of her own self-importance. Far from it. Whatever she's talking about, the basic little girl is never far below the surface.
With the help of her parents — but mostly, they insist, with her own ideas and passion — Hannah has parlayed an encounter when she was five with a street person eating from a garbage can into the Ladybug Foundation Inc., a high-profile advocacy and fundraising group that boasts singer Chantal Kreviazuk and Lloyd Axworthy among its supporters. Prime Minister Paul Martin is a fan, too.
The foundation has raised more than $200,000 through everything from corporate donations to the little ladybug collecting jugs Hannah makes from baby-food jars. "My sister Gabriella, she's four, used to help. She ate the baby food."
Hannah giggles and shuffles on the couch as, almost in the same breath, she talks about her five pets at home and her three meetings with Martin. She told him once that if he listened to her speeches, she'd listen to his and "when I phoned him on election day and said that even if he lost I'd still like him..."
Wait. The Prime Minister takes her calls?
"Yep."
What's he like?
"Well, he likes soup. His laugh is very hearty. He's very nice."
Hannah's dad is a lawyer. Her mom is the first to admit that their family, four kids in all, have a good life. Hannah goes to a private girls' school and when they come to Toronto on vacation, the Taylors usually stay at the Four Seasons. It's different this time because the Empire Club meets at the Royal York.
But after five-year-old Hannah saw the street person and the garbage can, "she kept asking me why he was doing that. For a year after, she wondered what he was doing, where he was."
It's Hannah's story though, and she wants to tell it. "I got my school informed about homeless people and we started collecting clothes and food. And it sort of grew. I was seven, maybe, when I made my first speech."
Was she nervous?
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."
And now?
"No, just excited."
What will she tell the Empire Club today? "How they can help. About the homeless people I've met. How the best part is seeing them happy. To give them hope in their hearts that they'll have a roof over their heads, a fridge to go to and a bed to sleep in."
After the speech, she and her folks will head up to the Four Seasons to look for a homeless man named Carey — Hannah spells it carefully for you — whom she befriended on a previous visit.
"He was near the hotel and I gave him all the change in my purse," she says. "My lucky ladybug pin dropped into his cup. A few minutes later, he came up to us and said, `You should have this back.' I asked him his name and he said no one ever asked that. And he started to cry. No one was ever nice to him."
A nice kid. Asked what she wants to do when she grows up — "you mean when I graduate?" — she lists "plan A, plan B and plan C: Run for prime minister; work at the Vancouver aquarium; and be a stay-at-home mom like my mom. I figure I might be able to do all three."
Don't bet against her.
You know, sometimes I think Paul Martin would have amazing potential if only he had a couple people to sell him well. He's obviously a policy wonk, he cares about what the gov't does, as opposed to Chrétien who was clearly only about gaining and maintaining power.
A tiny soldier in war on homelessness
Winnipeg girl has raised $200,000
Empire Club's youngest-ever speaker
BILL TAYLOR
FEATURE WRITER
The Empire Club, by its own say-so, is one of our "oldest and largest speakers' forums ... (with) some of Canada's most influential leaders from the professions, business, labour, education and government. ... It has been addressed by more than 2,500 prominent Canadian and international leaders."
Tomorrow's featured guest is Bill Graham, minister of national defence. He'll have a tough act to follow: 9-year-old Hannah Taylor, who today becomes the Empire Club's youngest-ever speaker.
Hannah, pig-tailed and self-possessed — the prospect of facing a couple of hundred people doesn't faze her one bit — is here from Winnipeg with her parents, Colleen and Bruce Taylor, to talk about homelessness.
"There are lots of ways people can help," she says, sitting in the family's room at the Fairmont Royal York hotel. She's sent her parents out while she does the interview "because I get nervous with them listening. Anyway, people can, of course, offer money or food or old clothing or even new clothing to the homeless. Or just be nice to them. Most homeless people are not treated the way they should be. If you can't do anything else, you can make them smile."
It's a nice idea. She's a nice kid. She greets you with a handshake but you part with a hug. You might think, given the attention that's paid to her as she moves from speaking engagement to speaking engagement, that she'd be a brat, full of her own self-importance. Far from it. Whatever she's talking about, the basic little girl is never far below the surface.
With the help of her parents — but mostly, they insist, with her own ideas and passion — Hannah has parlayed an encounter when she was five with a street person eating from a garbage can into the Ladybug Foundation Inc., a high-profile advocacy and fundraising group that boasts singer Chantal Kreviazuk and Lloyd Axworthy among its supporters. Prime Minister Paul Martin is a fan, too.
The foundation has raised more than $200,000 through everything from corporate donations to the little ladybug collecting jugs Hannah makes from baby-food jars. "My sister Gabriella, she's four, used to help. She ate the baby food."
Hannah giggles and shuffles on the couch as, almost in the same breath, she talks about her five pets at home and her three meetings with Martin. She told him once that if he listened to her speeches, she'd listen to his and "when I phoned him on election day and said that even if he lost I'd still like him..."
Wait. The Prime Minister takes her calls?
"Yep."
What's he like?
"Well, he likes soup. His laugh is very hearty. He's very nice."
Hannah's dad is a lawyer. Her mom is the first to admit that their family, four kids in all, have a good life. Hannah goes to a private girls' school and when they come to Toronto on vacation, the Taylors usually stay at the Four Seasons. It's different this time because the Empire Club meets at the Royal York.
But after five-year-old Hannah saw the street person and the garbage can, "she kept asking me why he was doing that. For a year after, she wondered what he was doing, where he was."
It's Hannah's story though, and she wants to tell it. "I got my school informed about homeless people and we started collecting clothes and food. And it sort of grew. I was seven, maybe, when I made my first speech."
Was she nervous?
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."
And now?
"No, just excited."
What will she tell the Empire Club today? "How they can help. About the homeless people I've met. How the best part is seeing them happy. To give them hope in their hearts that they'll have a roof over their heads, a fridge to go to and a bed to sleep in."
After the speech, she and her folks will head up to the Four Seasons to look for a homeless man named Carey — Hannah spells it carefully for you — whom she befriended on a previous visit.
"He was near the hotel and I gave him all the change in my purse," she says. "My lucky ladybug pin dropped into his cup. A few minutes later, he came up to us and said, `You should have this back.' I asked him his name and he said no one ever asked that. And he started to cry. No one was ever nice to him."
A nice kid. Asked what she wants to do when she grows up — "you mean when I graduate?" — she lists "plan A, plan B and plan C: Run for prime minister; work at the Vancouver aquarium; and be a stay-at-home mom like my mom. I figure I might be able to do all three."
Don't bet against her.
You know, sometimes I think Paul Martin would have amazing potential if only he had a couple people to sell him well. He's obviously a policy wonk, he cares about what the gov't does, as opposed to Chrétien who was clearly only about gaining and maintaining power.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 02:37 pm (UTC)I suspect the way thing are going we're going to lose the Liberals and get the damn Conservatives... blargh.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 03:17 pm (UTC)I don't think that the Conservatives can get a majority... The Bloc will hold far too many seats in Québec for that. I think that a core of Ontario voters will still hold their nose and vote Liberal. But I think it would do Canadian politics a whole deal of good to get a minority Conservative parliament backed by the Bloc... Or the NDP, but I think the Bloc is a whole lot palatable to Conservatives than the NDP, for the simple reason that decentralization deals can potentially be made with the Bloc.
I think that one of the crucial things that's happening to Liberals right now is how the Federal government is awash with surpluses and the provincial governments struggle to not go into deficit, and keep funding healthcare. Ontario is doing a huge push right now on this issue, and Québec has been for years. I think at this point any government, to be successful, will have to pay heed to the imbalance. Martin will not manage to drape himself in healthcare this year again. He did last time but Canadians will not be hoodwinked. It's going to be a veeeery interesting election.