The World's A Kinder Place Tonight

It's been a while since I've been inspired to write.  But something happened today, two things actually, that have raised my spirits and renewed my faith in the next generation.  Most importantly, they made my dad, Maj. Robert P. Smith (ret.), RHLI , a World War II veteran now fighting some significant health battles, smile.

My niece (his granddaughter) invited my dad, along with my mom Audrey, to be the special guests at Burlington's Maplehurst Public School's Remembrance Day Ceremony.   The well-prepared M.C.'s introduced the most poignant Remembrance day video, "A Pittance of Time" by Nova Scotia's Terry Kelly, a wonderful singer-songwriter I had interviewed in the past.  The school choir, immaculately dressed for the occasion, including our nine-year-old Sierra, sang the chorus.  Sierra never took her eyes off the choir leader, concentrating on every word, every note.  She knew this was an important day.  She had just had her ears pierced and wore her "high heels".  When the song ended, with my sister Barbi, her mom, willing back tears, she ran over to my parents and thanked them for coming.

For these children, who knew no more about war than a chapter in their history books or one of those video games, they saw before their very eyes, a real life superhero, a little different from the Hollywood variety.  They thanked my dad, and walked by in awe, mesmerized by his medals, his actual presence.

It was what happened next that broadened his smile even more.  They went for a coffee and something to eat.  It was lunchtime and students from nearby Nelson High School were flooding the coffee shop.  My sister turned toward the door in search of a less crowded venue when someone behind the counter said, "Wait, don't go.  We'll clear you a table." Then two young girls at the front of the line said, "Please take our place."  So with cane in hand, medals shining and legion cap perched atop his head, my dad led my mom and my sister to a table of honour at their neighbourhood Tim Horton's.  By the way his coffee and apple fritter were on the house.

Please take a moment to watch this video and think of my dad and all the super heros who have laid their lives on the line for our freedom...for our country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2kX_3y3u5Uo

Tilly's Gift

My precious pup Tilly died in my arms today. We took her up to our cottage where she loved the lake and to visit with the neighbours, never thinking we would come home without her. Yes she was 12 and yes she had slowed down in the past year or so and yes we had her on some medication to kickstart a waning appetite of late.
But she left us too soon.
I watched her laboured breathing slow and her heartbeat stop as I stroked her beautiful head on my lap.
She loved the back seat of the car. We took her everywhere with us. She knew we were going somewhere and she knew she was with us. Tilly had been with us and part of us since a few months after we married in 1999. A gift to my son Calvin, then 10, Tilly was his best little buddy during an important chapter of his growth and maturity into adulthood. It broke my heart but I was filled with pride as he lifted her lifeless body out of the back seat of the Santa Fe and insisted on carrying her into the Lynden Animal Clinic.
I will cherish every moment of her short life from the time Pam Jamieson of the Hamilton SPCA brought a tiny puppy with one blue eye and one brown eye, into the CHCH News at Noon set, to the moment my wonderful Dave brought her home inside his leather jacket, to Calvin's first moments meeting her...to our last good-bye...so many wonderful memories of a loving and gentle soul in between with wisdom beyond most people's understanding of "man's best friends".
I am so glad I played with her, ran with her, cuddled her, kissed her head, buried my face in her fur and told her over and over that she was the best dog in the whole wide world.
Everyone who met her loved her. Tilly touched many hearts with her gentle nature and engaging personality. She has left a giant paw print on this corner of the world.
We stroked her and told her how much we loved her then pulled ourselves away knowing her spirit had left us in that back seat...the back seat where she felt comfortable, where she was with us and where she chose to spare us the difficult decision of how and when to end her pain down the road.
Tilly, I know you are running with the wind again. I will always love you, my precious puppy...

Imagine…a truly United Way!


John Lennon would be proud. As the Hamilton Spectator reported, the community of Burlington and Greater Hamilton United Way 2011 Campaign celebrated raising more than $6.9 million dollars, revealed at the Bulldogs Game (which they won over the St. John’s Ice Caps!) Friday night at Copps Coliseum. Through the efforts of thousands of volunteers and thanks to the generosity and compassion of our citizens, this United Way has raised $248 million since its beginning 84 years ago. No other charitable organization anywhere consistently raises millions of dollars every year.
One comment I’ve heard over and over during my term as Hamilton Campaign Chair is, “I had no idea that was a United Way funded agency”. That has been “Big Brothers and Big Sisters”, “Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs”, the “V.O.N.”, “Meals on Wheels”, and the list is 133 names long. By sharing the stories of just who the United Way is and the people it touches, we rely on media organizations like the Hamilton Spectator to open eyes and hearts to the good work…the essential work… its 73 agencies do everyday, year after year.
These are, to use an expression we hear all too often theses days, tough economic times. As our tax dollars fall short of meeting demand for essential services, the United Way Campaign must compete with multiple fund raising efforts…all with needs just as pressing.
But what if we could work in partnership, to keep people out of food banks, out of shelters, out of hospital emergency rooms, out of acute care beds, out of the correctional system, and happy, healthy and productive in their own homes. That figure works out to one in 3 of us. Think of the dollars we could save and re-channel collectively, preventively.
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man… imagine all the people sharing all the world. Like John Lennon said, you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one. My deepest gratitude is to everyone, every individual donor, every corporate and community leader who joined our cause. My dream is to open the eyes and hearts of those who have yet to see the incredible difference they can make. I hope someday you'll join us and our community can live as one.
Connie Smith,
Hamilton Chair,
2011 United Way Campaign
Burlington and Greater Hamilton

"I Was No Suri Cruise But I Loved My High Heels Too!"

It was one of my earliest memories although the gift at the heart of this story came the Christmas before...

Those stairs seemed so-o-o-o tall and steep and endless, especially for a five year old who was small for her age to begin with.

We lived in the top two floors of a duplex on Mountain Avenue. It was an old house, even back then. My "Nan" lived on the ground floor. My younger sister and I shared a bedroom in the attic.

That Christmas, Santa delivered my "Sally Ann" doll as promised and after the presents were opened, I recall the thought occurring to me in a flash. After all, when you choose to come into this world on such an auspicious day as Christmas, the birthday, even for the person in question, often takes a back seat to the more famous Christmas baby, at least for the first few hours of the day. So when that realization struck me, off I dashed, up those daunting stairs, first to the halfway landing, a pause, catch my breath then up the rest into our bedroom.

I must have carefully stashed them under the bed or in a closet, for there they were, just as I had left them: my red, sparkly, pretend high heels. So beautiful! So grown up! But alas, up until that very day, even though a child's size, they were way too big for my teeny four-year-old feet. "Surely they must fit me NOW!" I wriggled my toes under the two silver elastic straps as fast as I could, certain that since I was now FIVE, my dumb, puny feet would have grown enough for those plastic resin beauties to fit like Cinderella's glass slipper.....?!

...THEY WERE STILL TOO BIG! Yet down those stairs I carefully trudged, one at a time, and unsteadily into the loving arms of my sympathetic and understanding parents. With one look at "Sally Ann though", my footwear cares soon drifted away and I can honestly say I don't remember what happened to those red shoes.

That Christmas I learned that one year is just a blink in time, a "tap of the toe" in the grand score of things. And further that sometimes, in fact more often than not, things you want the most in life take time and can't be rushed. Time moved painfully slow back then. In fact I was in high school before my feet grew into a woman's size. Now, so many high heels later, my feet ache for flats and flip flops and time flies.

A Distinction-One Difficult Year Later

It's been 12 months since being honoured as an inductee into the Hamilton Gallery of Distinction. ...an incredible experience as the new 2011 inductees now know. At the time, I was embarking on the second season of a brand new TV series, "Always good News". Two years after a traumatic end to 32 years as an anchor/reporter/producer with CHCH Hamilton, I was re-invented and re-energized. The media business has one year later been tossing me about again...yes, my good friend singer/songwriter John Ellison reminds me it's time for a new opportunity ...but it's easy to nosedive into a place I don't want to be. So tonight I'm reliving that evening that marked one of the highlights of my career if not my life. Sunni Genesco was M.C.....

Good evening…thank you Sunni…I’m so used to doing what Sunni does, keeping the evening moving along, introducing the special guests….that I’m feeling quite overwhelmed to be in this part of the agenda.

But Mark{Chamberlain}, Alan{McPherson}, Bob {Morrow}, Steve {Smith} and Dan {McLean}….. it is an honour to sit at the same table with you… and Dan I knew we’d be back together one day. Now we’ll be hanging around forever!

… thank you Gallery of Distinction and my nominator and former Mohawk classmate Jim Slomka who knew enough back then to move into advertising.

I don’t think it’s until you’re well into adulthood that you starting about why you do what you do and how you end up where you are in life.

There was a best selling novel called the Celestine Prophesy…enlightenment…no such thing as coincidences….situations we find ourselves in, opportunities that present themselves, people who come into our lives…are all guideposts in our life journey..

Like our parents. I was small for my age…school was daunting…everyone was bigger but my parents helped me find my voice…writing that first speech … my Dad correcting my grammar… my Mom sitting in the front row more nervous than I was… encouraging me to do well, to have a career, to be independent.

My 2 sisters and family have been anchors in my life while I was being an anchor to everyone else.

Our teachers:..Mrs. Wray taught me the power of words, Mr. Bateman: how to see the beauty all around us… Mrs. Cranfield : that even the guys could still be cool and speak French…with an accent. Norm Marshall …gave me confidence in front of that microphone. Hey kid, he’d say… you can do it….

They all came back in my life decades later with stories I would tell…Jennifer Wray and her amazing sister Elizabeth and her Concerts of Hope, Margaret Ann Cranfield and irrepressable Knot a Breast Dragon Boaters…and Norm, working together on the six o’clock news. Coincidenses? I don’t think so.

There are all the people who hire us and fire us….
Mrs. Carson gave me my first job at the Red and White grocery store and taught me the customer is always right...

Con Stevenson at CKOC taught me how to supply the night DJ’s with elastics to hold their hair back while they read my newscasts,



Bob MacIntyre at CKVR
taught me to be careful driving to Penetanguishene and back in a blizzard to shoot my own story..in a Hornet!

Dick Grey trusted the advice of another old classmate Stan Keyes and hired me at CHCH. John Best had the guts to put a woman on the anchor desk beside Dan …

Tom Cherington taught me to ask tough questions but treat people with dignity…all guideposts.

Half way through my career, another signpost jumped in front of me and changed my life forever. …my greatest fan…just ask any of the cashiers at Fortino’s who were at the receiving end of his toddler interrogations: Do you know who my Mommy is???? But like my Cal, our kids teach us how to nurture and make us so proud.

My life and work partner, is my constant guide….I call him Australia’s gift to Canadian broadcasting and this Canadian broadcaster: my husband Dave Wilson. I couldn’t do any of this or be what I am without your love, talent and God knows patience.

I have Dave and another Dave: David Lee to thank for coming up with a concept for news that was years ahead of its time. They knew that journalism was only covering part of the story.

And it was Rob Sheppard and the gang at CTS , who agreed now was the time for a little more Good News.

Last but not least, my guideposts have been every individual, every child who opened their homes, their hearts to me, who trusted me with their hopes that by sharing their stories our world could be a better place.

Thank you to our community leaders like Kevin Smith and Sister Theresita for allowing me to sit at your table, learn from you wisdom and compassion and share in your vision.

I’ll close tonight with that grade 5 speech..the first time I stood before an audience. I still have those dog-earred, yellowed-with-time index cards somewhere. “I wonder what would happen if I woke up one morning and found myself living 100 years from now”…

Well I’m half-way there…I’ve seen a lot of change but one thing has stayed the same…the goodness in the people of this community, the willingness to reach out and make a difference and if I’ve been able to play the smallest role in helping connect those who need with those who need to give, then I am the better person, the grateful one for it.

More change will come in the next 50 years but there isn’t another place I’d rather watch the future arrive.
Thank you Hamilton.

The Power of One

Can one make a difference? Really?
The United Way’s Connie Smith says yes, and she’s seen the proof
We hear about the power of one: how through word, deed or example, one can empower legions of others to move mountains. Some may dismiss this concept as rhetoric, cliché. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes — many times.
A career in broadcast journalism has introduced me to many charities and charitable causes: some professionally organized and executed, others in isolation, looking for community connections. So many of the individuals involved in both the “need” and “need to give” sides of this wonderfully powerful human-dynamics equation today comprise my stable of personal heroes.
They don’t all — in fact very few — have a lot of money or elite positions in society. But they all share a sense of compassion that infuses everything they do.
This year as Hamilton Chair of the United Way Campaign, I am adding more personal heroes to my stable and I’d like to share them with you in hopes that they can inspired you to exercise your power of one.
I don’t even know their names but this is how I came to know them:
Denninger’s launched Oktoberfest on a beautiful sunny September Saturday with their first of what is to become an annual United Way fundraiser downtown Hamilton. A $5 ticket got you an amazing Denninger’s hot BBQ lunch. I manned the cash box.
At one point, two obviously street-wise young men approached the ticket table. Mindful of my fiduciary responsibilities, I clutched that cash box close to my chest.
“Lunch, gentlemen?” I inquired.
“Yeah,” came the response.
After they passed me two $5 bills, I began to tear off two tickets. One put up his hand.
“No.”
“What, you don’t want a lunch?”
“No. Give it to someone who needs it. Someone helped me once.”
The power of one …
A few minutes later an elderly, disabled man in a wheelchair approached. To me, he appeared in need and my first thought was to offer him a meal for free. But he pointed to a black leather pouch chained to his wheelchair, gesturing for me to open it up.
“You want to buy a ticket?”
He nodded. It was clear that this lovely soul didn’t want charity. He wanted to help someone else too.
The power of one …
King’s Buffet, another incredibly generous corporate partner, agreed to a first-ever Thanksgiving Buffet Dinner to benefit the United Way. Ninety-nine cents for all you could eat!
Well, as you can imagine, there were lineups that stretched around the plaza multiple times as people waited in line for hours. When the last seating began, a revelation came to us when a mother of a large family confided that had it not been for this event, they couldn’t have afforded a Thanksgiving Dinner. But again, with their 99 cents per person, each member of that family was donating to help others. What a wonderful sense of empowerment.
The power of one …
Most recently, a collaboration between our Hamilton Ticats, Carmen’s and Reebok athletic wear, called “Kicks for Kids,” sent more than 100 inner-city kids on a dream bus ride to the Reebok warehouse to pick out their choice of a free pair of running shoes. Many turned in their old pairs, tattered and ripped beyond repair. The program raises funds every time Ticat Justin Medlock kicks a successful field goal over 40 yards at Ivor Wynne Stadium.
Ask Justin, or PJ Mercanti of Carmen’s, or a member of the dedicated United Way staff, what it was like to see the joy in any one of those faces about … the power of one.
Our United Way goal this year is to raise $6,999,999 to fund 73 social service agencies, administering 133 programs to meet an ever-growing need. That’s one dollar short of $7 million. But we believe in the power of one … one dollar … one person … one smile. One community — and when it comes to reaching our goal, we are not just achievers, we are over-achievers.
This year one in three of us will turn to a United Way agency. If we all give just a little, we could move those proverbial mountains and change a life. It could be a friend, a co-worker, a family member, maybe, one day, even you. Change starts here.
Connie Smith is Hamilton Chair, United Way Campaign, 2011.
Postscript: For the first time, the Hamilton Music Awards have partnered with the United Way and Connie Smith will be one of the awards presenters. Purchase tickets to this weekend’s concerts and award shows at a savings through the United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton and a portion of the proceeds will support the good work of the United Way. www.uwaybh.ca/event/hamilton-music-awards OR call 905-527-4543.

"Kicking Off a New Season..."

Well that used to mean... "on TV", in my business. But since becoming Chair of the Hamilton Ontario 2011 United Way Campaign, kicking off has taken on a much more literal meaning! (see photo).

Let's just say I made contact with the football at the September 16th, Hamilton Tiger Cat game against the Edmonton Eskimos. My Burlington Co-Chair Rick Bashista actually nailed a field goal, much to the dismay of all. (If only the Ticats performed that well that night...)

The next day I helped serve up an Oktoberfest BBQ at Denninger's downtown Hamilton. A $5.00 ticket bought you a wonderful lunch with all proceeds going to the United Way.

How touching when two young men who probably lived in the inner city bought two meal tickets but after taking their money they refused the tickets asking me to give them away to "someone who needed them." "Someone helped me once", one of them remarked as they walked away.

When a severely disabled man in a wheelchair approached dour ticket booth, my first impulse was to offer him a free meal until I realized , as he gestured towards a leather wallet chained to his wheelchair, that he wanted to buy his meal like everyone else and support the wonderful United Way funded agencies and programs that have likely helped him along the way.

Our United Way team has got the ball and we are rushing toward a $6,999,999.00 goal this year to help the one in 3 of us who will reach out to a United Way agency at some point in our life journeys.

Watch in the media for personal stories of community leaders, "Change Started With Me" and visit unitedway.ca to give where you live; in Burlington, Greater Hamilton, uwaybh.ca or text unitedway to 45678. Change starts here!

Now as for kicking off another season in that TV business, we are in negotiations to launch a new production season of "Always Good News", now airing at 6 week nights on CTS TV (http://www.alwaysgoodnews.ca/) and who knows what else may pop up on your TV or computer screen....stay tuned!!!