MORE ICE TIME Spaling spent about half an hour at the WMC filming a commercial for the Mennonite Church of Canada.

“Sometimes people will associate Mennonite with a certain ethnicity, a German ethnicity, or oftentimes would assume that all Mennonites are old-order Mennonite with the horse and buggy, so we’re trying to dispel that.”
The shoot consisted of two locations; youth playing ball hockey in the parking lot of Community Mennonite Fellowship, and Spaling playing in a mock NHL game at the Dan Snyder Arena. The scenes will cut between one boy in particular at the ball hockey game (symbolizing Spaling as a youth), and Spaling at the NHL level taking slap shots and body checking opponents into the glass.

“The main focus of it is that you can find Mennonites anywhere and everywhere. The idea is that ‘I’m Nick Spaling. I’m an NHL player, and I’m also a Mennonite,’” explained Metzger.

Metzger has been trying to organize the shoot for nearly a year, but with Spaling’s busy NHL schedule, it has been hard to find the time. Finally, the pair decided they could do it over the NHL All-Star break since Spaling would be returning home to visit family because he couldn’t make it home for Christmas.

The NHLer said he was happy to help the community that had done so much for him growing up.

“Being a part of the Mennonite Church, when this opportunity came up I thought it was a great way to get the church’s message out there and to get that point across,” said Spaling after the shoot at the WMC.
“It’s a new and evolving way of looking at things, instead of your typical Mennonite that a lot of people think of these days.”

The commercial is just the first in a series that the Mennonite Church hopes to film, and Metzger said they have arranged to film a member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as well as ordinary business people and entrepreneurs to give the commercials a well-rounded mix of high-profile professionals as well as the everyday person.

Metzger said he was unsure when the commercial might hit the airwaves, but hoped it could coincide with the Predators’ playoff push in early spring.

She also received a new iPod and a pizza party for her entire Grade 6 class at Wellesley Public School.

“My mom heard about the contest, so I thought it would be a lot of fun,” said Katie.

Katie’s mother Sharon, a Grade 6 teacher in Kitchener, said she was surprised to learn that Katie was one of the winners, but that surprise quickly disappeared.

“She is such a creative girl. Her writing, her doodling, she’s always reading,” said Sharon. “She loves her home and is very passionate about our home and what it stands for. I wasn’t surprised by what she wrote.”
Katie’s poem touches on many themes that most of us can probably relate to. She describes how home is a place of joy and delight, and that it is like “arms that embrace.”
She also writes about how her creativity takes flight and that fun has no limit in her home – and she even makes mention of her father Ken’s homemade waffles.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME Katie McDonald was one of five runner-up winners in the Genworth Meaning of Home essay contest. She wrote her poem outside in the family treehouse.

“My dad makes those a lot,” she said with a smile.

This is the fifth year of the essay contest, and it has seen more than 10,000 essays submitted in that time. The latest contest was also Genworth’s best – a total of 3,190 essays were submitted from coast to coast, and the contest was open to children in Grades 4, 5 and 6, with the winners chosen from a list of 24 finalists.

Genworth’s leader of community relations said that Katie’s poem was well-written and truly conveyed the meaning of home, which was why she was selected as a runner-up.
“It’s not just a place to sleep, and it’s not just determined by the brick and mortar,” said Linda Belanger. “It’s somewhere where a family gets together and, as (Katie) said, the home is about the people inside and the love that’s around it.”

An Ethiopean-born Grade 4 student from Calgary, Edelawit Schnell, was the grand prize winner and $60,000 was given to a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in her name. Altogether Genworth has donated more than $450,000 to the charity since the contest began.

This year the company also donated $5 to Habitat for Humanity for every essay that was submitted.

“We added this element so that every kid can feel like they are contributing,” said Belanger.

Since this year also marks the fifth anniversary of the contest, Genworth will be publishing a book of all the winners and the runners-up from the past five years, with all of the proceeds going back the Habitat for Humanity.
Katie said that she didn’t know anything about Habitat for Humanity before the contest, but since she decided to enter she did a little more research on the organization and said that they are doing important work to try and build homes for those who can’t afford them.

She has donated her $5,000 to Habitat for Humanity in Stratford, and hopes the money can be used to help someone else discover the joys of home that she loves so much.
“I’ve always grown up in a good home so I thought it would be fun to write about it and tell other people about where I live.”

The goals came in bunches all night against Listowel as Elmira scored two in the first, three in the second, and three more in the third en route to the win. Riley Sonnenburg led the way with a hat trick and an assist, while Brett Priestap also added four points on a goal and three assists.

Justis Husak was strong in goal, making 38 saves for his eighth win of the year.

ANOTHER STOP Elmira’s Nick Horrigan sticks out his left pad to stop Pat Clifford of the Cullitons at point -blank range in the first period of Elmira’s 6-2 victory last Sunday. Horrigan made 26 saves in the win.

Sunday night at home against the Cullitons the Kings fell behind early but managed to rally to snap the visitor’s four-game winning streak.
Stratford took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission despite being outshot 23-15 by the Kings, and Brad McClure extended that lead to 2-0 on the powerplay just 1:54 into the second.
The Kings, however, pushed back with four unanswered goals and headed to the dressing room up 4-2 at the end of 40 minutes.

“I don’t think there was anything that sparked us,” said DeSilva of the comeback. “There is a sense of confidence and a sense of belief with the players and the team. There was no panic, and we talked about that before the game.”

Elmira’s Michael Hasson got the ball rolling less than two minutes after Stratford made it 2-0 when he crossed the Cullitons blueline and unleashed a quick wrist shot through a screen at the top of the faceoff circle, beating Stratford’s Jesse Raymond for his 14th of the year. Brett Catto and Mitch Dunning picked up the assists.

The floodgates opened a few moments later when Brady Campbell undressed Raymond on a breakaway when he faked backhand and managed to pull the puck back to his forehand and tuck it past the sprawling keeper to knot the game 2-2 at 11:20 of the period. Catto and Will Cook collected the assists.

Andrew Smith gave the home team the lead for good just two minutes later when he took a cross-ice pass from Sonnenburg and picked the top corner with a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot to make it 3-2 at 13:25. Priestap had the other assist on the goal.

Brad Kraus finished the scoring in the period on the powerplay at 17:35 after defenceman Colton Wolfe-Sabo carried the puck deep in Stratford territory and behind the icing line before passing it out front, where Kraus was waiting near the lip of the crease to bang home his 21st of the year.

In the third the Kings continued to pressure the Cullitons and gave them no quarter in their own zone. Hasson tallied a shorthanded goal just 1:47 into the third after Lukas Baleshta stripped the Stratford defender of the puck near the Culliton blue line and made a nice cross-ice feed to Hasson for his second of the night, and Sonnenburg finished off the scoring at 14:45 on the powerplay from Smith and Cass Frey.
Nick Horrigan finished with 26 saves to collect the win.

“We felt very, very confident with what we were doing and we thought we could wear them down even though we were down by two goals at one point,” said DeSilva of their overall game plan against Stratford.
On Tuesday night the Kings travelled to Kitchener for a game against the 8-28-7 Dutchmen and didn’t let up, handing them their eighth straight loss with a 6-2 win. Will Cook led the offence with two goals, and Scott Nagy and Sonnenburg had a pair of assists in the win.

Horrigan collected the win by making 25 saves.

DeSilva said that the players have turned the corner from their struggles earlier in the season and that every player knows their role when they step onto the ice. That being said, he also credits the team’s four solid lines for the well-rounded offence on display during the Kings recent winning streak.

“If we expect one line to do the scoring, and it’s not their night, they focus on the defensive side of the puck and the other three lines can pick up the scoring.”
He also said they would be treating the remaining eight games on the schedule as a tune-up for the playoffs, treating every game like it was a part of a playoff series.
“Over seven games we’re going to be tough to beat, and we’re talking about the playoffs being all about momentum, so we can’t give teams any opportunity.”

The Kings play at home against Guelph tomorrow (Sunday) in an afternoon tilt, with puck drop at 2 p.m. then head to Stratford next Friday night for a rematch against the Cullitons starting at 7:30 p.m.

“Former librarian Mary Anne Cressman took on the project knowing that a lot of old-timers had some great stories and she did not want to lose sight of that,” said Sheryl Tilley, supervisor of the Elmira library.
Tilley found 40 cassette tapes in the bottom of a cabinet in 2010 and discovered they contained interviews with local citizens. Four of those tapes had degraded and were unusable for the digital project as they were not held in an archival setting.

ONLINE Sheryl Tilley, supervisor of the Elmira Library, listens to the online collection of digital interviews.

Recognizing the need to make the oral history of the town available to as many people as possible, Tilley contacted regional archivist Lesley Webb and requested to host the interviews on Archives Online, a descriptive database of records held in the archives.

Working together, the library and the archives created online access to the interviews for everyone to enjoy.
“For the first time these interviews are available around the world because of the digital format. So if someone is doing a genealogy study and happen to live in France they can access this information online,” said Tilley. “We have taken Elmira around the world.”

The digitization of the tapes was possible thanks to community funds donated in the memory of Cressman, who passed away in July 2010.
“This project was near and dear to (Cressman’s) heart and I am glad we were able to take the next step with it and allow more people to hear the oral history of Elmira,” said Tilley.
To listen to the voices of Elmira’s past, users can visit the library’s online catalogue, accessible from the home page www.rwl.library.on.ca, or through Archives Online at http://row.minisisinc.com. When searching the library’s catalogue, simply type ‘oral history interview’ in the search box.

CDs of the recordings are also available for purchase through the Regional Archives by calling 519-575-4757, ext. 3027. Any money raised from the CD purchases will go into transcribing the interviews and anyone interested in volunteering their time to transcribe the records are asked to contact the Elmira library.

The federal and provincial government each contributed about $2.1 million to the projects, with the Township of Woolwich contributing the balance of the costs.

“I just want to say what a privilege it has been to work on these construction projects across the riding,” said Albrecht to a crowd of about 15 people gathered at the WMC.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Woolwich Coun. Julie-Anne Herteis, MP Harold Albrecht, Mayor Todd Cowan, and MPP for Kitchener-Centre John Milloy were at the WMC Jan. 27 to recognize improvements to township infrastructure.

“Transportation infrastructure is crucial to our local economy, we all know that. It connects workers with jobs and products with markets. Improvements to transportation infrastructure are also important for the safety of our community.”

The federal government’s support came from the infrastructure stimulus fund, a part of Canada’s economic action plan which officially wrapped up on Oct. 31 of last year. Albrecht said that throughout the action plan the federal government sought to find shovel-ready projects that could readily use the funds, and he said that the Township of Woolwich was always up to the task.

“When those stimulus funds were announced it wasn’t a case of Woolwich scrambling to figure out how they could spend the funds,” Albrecht said.

Milloy not only thanked both Cowan and Albrecht for their cooperation with the funding, he said that it was important to make these types of announcements to maintain credibility and accountability in the public eye.
“I think it’s important that we report back to people about what happened to those funds and those taxpayer dollars that came from this community,” said Milloy, who couldn’t resist taking a shot at the provincial PC party by saying although the word “taxes” had been vilified by some in the last election, they are a useful way of society pooling collective resources to help pay for the things that we all derive a collective benefit from.
Cowan was upfront about the fact that without provincial and federal financial assistance, most of the infrastructure problems in the township would be impossible to deal with due to the small tax base.
“We have over 20 roads and bridges that need to be improved at this point, and we can pay for about two, so the more money the better,” he said.
“Thank you again, we couldn’t have done it without you – well, we could have, but it would have taken a hundred years.”

In recognition of the market conditions, director of engineering and planning Dan Kennaley suggested it’s appropriate to relax the restrictions on the property. Allowing a wider range of service commercial uses, including restaurants, opens up the possibility of more tenants, he said.

The changes approved Tuesday night by councillors meeting as a committee of the whole follow an application last spring by owner King/86 Developments. The company argued that current restrictions on the site are making it difficult to lease space there, noting only about half of the permitted 305,000 square feet has been built.

A planning and marketing report prepared for the company prior to a public meeting last May shows the requested changes would generate more business without having any negative impact on existing operations in Woolwich and Waterloo.

After reviewing the studies, Woolwich’s planners – as well as their counterparts in Waterloo – determined some extra uses would be suitable. Among the long list of new options for development are a medical clinic, photo studio, printing/copying/publishing establishment, rental/repair service (rent-all), travel agency, veterinary operation, auction centre and hotel/motel.

Controls over the number and size of restaurants have also been loosened. But the township didn’t want to provide too much leeway for fear the development would fill up with fast-food restaurant chains if smaller operations are allowed.

Originally, the goal was to have large-format restaurants, as is often the case at power centres. So far, however, the only taker has been the Arby’s, and the developer had to use up one of two exceptions to get the 1,800-square-foot restaurant built. Under the new Official Plan and zoning, the developer can have two restaurants at minimum size of 800 sq. ft., two at 1,200 sq. ft. and one at a minimum size of 1,800 sq. ft. (the existing Arby’s operation). As an incentive, the township will allow two more restaurants of at least 1,500 sq. ft. if two larger restaurants of at least 5,000 sq. ft. locate in the power centre.

“The need to consider smaller-type restaurants, recognizing that many of the larger restaurants over 5,000 sq. ft. (such as Boston Pizza, East Side Mario’s, Kelsey’s, the Keg and Swiss Chalet) are already located in the City of Waterloo within a four-kilometre radius of King/86’s development. As such, the list of larger restaurants that would normally be attracted to the King/86 development has diminished over time,” reads the staff report submitted to councillors.

Kennaley said the new arrangement strikes a balance between existing retail in Woolwich and Waterloo and the needs of the developer

“We want the King/86 development to make good use of the land that’s available to them … to allow them to develop in a reasonable fashion.”

Responding to a question from Coun. Julie-Anne Herteis, Kennaley said the decision would have few immediate implications on St. Jacobs-based Mercedes Corp., which also holds land in the stockyards area. It, too, is having trouble renting space at the outlet mall and would like to see restrictions eased there.

Kennaley, however, noted the company is looking for changes that would be better dealt with in the broader context of a secondary plan review that will look at the whole area. The process is set to begin this year, running into early 2013.

“We have had a post office in Heidelberg since 1858,” said John Maziarz, who spoke for the delegation. “We had a commercial area that had a post office and it was safe to park in the area while collecting mail – cars were not in the way of traffic, and it was safe for pedestrians and motorists.”

Maziarz claimed the community boxes would change the traffic flow in the village as more cars would be on the road stopping to collect mail.

“Some of these mailboxes are in blind spots or on hills and this will be problematic for everyone involved, including horse-drawn buggies,” said Maziarz. “They will create a road hazard.”

Currently residents must travel to St. Clements to pick up their mail until Feb. 20 when the boxes are completely installed and ready to be used.

“There is a lot of mail order parcels now which means more parcels and we have to travel a longer distance to pick up items that were easily accessible to us at the old retail location,” said Maziarz. “The parcels won’t fit into the small community boxes.”

The delegation believed that Canada Post has created a situation that could be potentially unsafe and could cost the township money in snow removal around the boxes.
“Economically and safety-wise it does not make sense to have these boxes in the village,” said Maziarz. “We will not be serviced properly and it will cost a lot more.”

Mayor Ross Kelterborn had invited representatives from Canada Post to speak to the delegation and reassure the use of the community boxes were safe.

The community mailbox concept is not new, having been in operation since 1984 with a vast majority of mail handled through community mailboxes, said Tom Creech, corporate communications officer at Canada Post.
Mail delivery, he argued, has moved closer to residents as the nine locations in Heidelberg are now located within neighbourhoods.

“We have taken the 400 people that go to the store and spread them out all within their own neighbourhoods. Only the people living in the area are going to go to those boxes,” said Tom Zadorsky a Canada Post representative.
Each box is designed to have parcel compartments in them which will handle at least 70 per cent of the parcels that are mailed out. If there is a signature item the parcel will be delivered to the door and if no one is there to receive it, it will be sent to St. Clements to be picked up.

Canada Post will also be hiring someone to maintain the post boxes; they will shovel the snow, and make sure any graffiti or posters are removed.

“Unfortunately closing the retail at the variety store and moving delivery to St. Clements, that was an emergency case that happened and Canada Post did give residents a month’s notice on the change of address and the change to community mailbox service,” said Zadorsky.

Not everyone is expected to change their address effective Feb. 20, as Canada Post does give users a free change of address service for one year, said Creech.

The representatives expects some people will end up walking to the community boxes because they are located so close to home which will actually decrease the number of vehicles on the road.
“We know people don’t like change but our experiences have been that once these boxes have been used by customers for a length of time they come to appreciate the features that are available to them. It is a one stop shop to be able to mail and pick up most items,” said Zadorsky.

Canada Post worked with the municipality to find the suitable locations for all the boxes and if there were any safety concerns or incidents the boxes can be easily removed and located to a safer area.

The Cardosos have collected early readers, reference books and textbooks that can be used in schools for the resource centers.

The goal is to be able to set up a small resource centre in villages where higher-achieving children can offer help to other children in the village.

“Many of the children in Sierra Leone have parents who are illiterate; they have no access to support for their schoolwork or any reference materials so we are sending hundred of resource materials from young children’s books to encyclopedias,” said Gloria.

Originally, filling a 20-foot shipping container was the goal for the Breslau couple but after discussions with friends and family the Cardosos decided to double the size of the container to allow room for the 1998 Nissan Maxima that had been donated by friend Liz Peloso.

“We discussed sending a car to the charity that we are working with as it would allow them to drive from community to community and help with the delivery of the tools, books and clothing that we have collected,” said Gloria. “We found out it would only cost $1,000 more to ship a 40-foot container so it only made sense to make use of that.”

Doubling the size of the container allows space for the car, the three crates of tools, one crate of books, and the donated clothing, sewing machines and computers. Shipping the container to Sierra Leone will cost $5,000.
“We have had so many people donate to the cause especially the Rural Wellington Hospitals in Fergus and Elora who donated children’s clothing and books from the three consignments stores,” said Gloria. “We also have had our neighbour, Tim Hall, helping us move the crates and store them in his warehouse. He has been a real angel helping us.”

To offset the cost of shipping the container to Africa, the couple is selling coffee purchased and wrapped in cloth made in Africa for $20 a bag. Only 30 of the bags of coffee remain.

Anyone interested in purchasing some coffee or donating to the cause can visit 292 Townsend Dr. in Breslau.

She received a $6,500 grant from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, and returned to Canada at the beginning of January.

A WORLD OF EXPERIENCE Heidelberg’s Alice Price was in South Africa from September to January as part of her nursing degree from Ryerson University. Her work involved observing the care and treatment HIV/AIDS patients received from the government.

“My project was focused on looking at the policies that the government makes around HIV/AIDS and how it is manifested and implemented at the rural hospital and given to the patients that have HIV/AIDS,” said Price.
She wanted to focus her research on the rural community instead of the cities of South Africa because they are more remote and more difficult to access.

The people living in rural areas have less access to hospital and medical treatment largely because of the difficulty in travelling across the countryside; due to the sand and rocks, four-wheel-drive vehicles are essential, and not everyone has access to one.

“It is harder for them to come into the hospital because they can’t just get into a car and go,” said Price. “They live in homesteads that consist of maybe four or five round buildings that are made of sticks or piles of stones or straw, with a thatched roof.”

From her observations, Price said that there are a number of challenges facing the healthcare providers who are trying to counteract the spread of HIV and AIDS.

One of the biggest challenges is the way that the health care system is setup. She said that there are two levels of healthcare in the country, a public system that most of the people have access to, and a private system that is solely for the white community or the upper-middle class black community.

That division means those in the public system have less access to healthcare compared to the private system. At the hospital she was working at, for example, there were modern machines such as x-rays and MRIs, but if the machine broke, it could take several days to be fixed.

“That wouldn’t happen at a private hospital,” she said.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Africa, however, is changing the cultural norms ingrained in their society. Price said that because of the high level of patriarchy, women and children are marginalized compared to the men.

Likewise, cultural norms still take precedence over the pressing need to contain HIV and AIDS. For example, if a man loses his job in one village and travels to another looking for work, he may be away for several months at a time. During that time, he is expected to find a new sexual partner, which only helps spread the disease faster.

She also said that even though condoms are widely available, as well as educational material on how to properly use them, “in the heat of the moment, realistically they aren’t going to use them,” and until that behaviour is no longer tolerated, AIDS will continue to be a deadly reality.

Price said that in the region she was working in, approximately 50 per cent of the population has contracted HIV/AIDS, and women are much more likely to be tested than men because once a woman is pregnant testing for HIV is mandatory.

Price had lots of experience as a nurse before heading to Africa; she graduated in 1984 with her nursing diploma and worked as an oncology nurse and family nurse before starting her own foot-care business. She sold that business prior to enrolling in the nursing degree program at Ryerson in 2010.

Despite those years of experience, though, she thinks that her trip to Africa was one of the best learning opportunities of her life and that she can approach new situations without the cultural bias she might have carried before.

She also said that her time with the Zulu people of Africa – whose greetings can take up to three minutes to complete – taught her the importance of slowing down and taking time to really talk to someone.
“We’re in such a rushed society: you get on the treadmill and you just keep flying straight ahead,” she said. “But if you have an exchange with someone for three minutes, you’re going to actually really stop and look at them.”
Looking forward, Price has also enrolled in the masters of public health nursing program at the University of Waterloo, as well as the masters of nursing program at Ryerson.

Eye of round cut, which is a really lean cut of beef that, if over-cooked, can be extremely dry. We rubbed it simply with salt, pepper and a little oil and roasted it plain. The next day the leftover roast was easy to slice thin, heat up, and serve with the appropriate ‘Beef Dip’ staples. The following recipe is based on roasting the beef solely for the purpose of beef dip.
Rub roast well all over with a generous amount of salt, pepper and oil;
Place in roasting pan and roast at 425°F for 20 minutes; reduce oven heat to 375°F and continue to roast for a further 40 minutes. This will produce a roast between medium-rare and medium.  Do not turn oven off;
Remove from roasting pan and let rest on carving board, covered, for about 15 minutes. This will allow the juices to redistribute themselves throughout the roast;
Meanwhile, sauté onions and mushrooms in a little oil in a saucepot. Add beef stock and simmer until reduced slightly;
Slice rolls in half, but not all the way through. Spread lightly with butter and sprinkle a little cheese in each roll; toast in oven for about 5 minutes;
Slice beef thinly: use a sharp knife and make long, even strokes back and forth;
Pile beef into rolls; serve each roll with a ladle of the mushroom-onion beef jus in a small bowl for each person.

Classic Beef Dip (enough for 4-6 sandwiches)

• 2 lb eye of round beef roast
• Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper,
• Canola oil, as needed
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 lb mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 3 cups beef stock (low, no salt or homemade)
• 6 crusty rolls
• butter, as needed
• 1/2-lb mozzarella cheese, grated