"One night, it just felt like I was running through a postcard," she said of the snow-dusted mountains on one side of the road and the white-capped sea on the other.

Christmas carols dominated her iPod playlist. Friends and family kept her company on the days when the weather turned less than picturesque.

But even on those difficult days, Ms. Johnston, 54, says she never thought of slowing down. Her two muses, Stephanie Nolen and Stephen Lewis, inspired her to put on her running shoes every day, even when those shoes would be pounding along unplowed roads.

Ms. Nolen’s book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, first piqued the Ingonish woman’s interest in the subject and got her thinking about what she could do to contribute to ending the pandemic.

About a year later, she saw a television interview featuring Mr. Lewis, the former United Nations special envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa. He talked about Dare to Remember, a nationwide fundraising campaign that challenged Canadians to do something different to raise money for HIV-AIDS sufferers.

"Anyone who can inspire a woman my age to run around the (Cabot) Trail has got to be a pretty good person," Ms. Johnston said. "I started thinking about what I could do, and things just sort of happened after that."

She has regularly participated in the Cabot Trail relay, but that meant tackling only one leg of the journey. She said she didn’t know at first whether she could do the whole trail herself.

"People kept telling me that I was doing an amazing thing," she said. "But I didn’t want to say anything back until I actually finished it."

She set off on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, worried about how her body would feel the next day.

"I woke up (the next day) feeling like I’d just run a couple of miles," she said. "I woke up so psyched every day after that. I wasn’t stiff, I wasn’t sore, I wasn’t tired. I must have been running on adrenaline."

Old Man Winter threw Ms. Johnston a few curveballs. She ended up running in the tracks cars made in the road one day because the plow had not yet reached the stretch of pavement near Goose Cove.

Her course included North, Smokey and MacKenzie mountains, but they proved not to be the most challenging aspects of the race, she said.

"My worst day was also my best day," she said of a three-hour run through sleet, high winds and heavy traffic near Cheticamp.

"As we were going through Grand Etang, I know now why Nova Scotia Power has their windmills over there."

Ms. Johnston raised more than $8,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation over the course of her run.

The top five ‘student darers’ will be brought to Toronto using the Aeroplan Beyond Miles programme to have an evening of discussion, debate and great food with Naomi Klein, author of  The Shock Doctrine and No Logo. Universities and colleges participating in A Dare to Remember are to nominate one student from their campus by Friday, December 4th.  The campaign runs from Dare Week (October 17-25) to World AIDS Day on December 1st.

Document your campus dares! Send in photos, videos, and media clippings with your nomination.

 For more information, please contact Alexis at amacdonald@stephenlewisfoundation.org or 1-888-203-9990, ext 234.
 

Johnston began her journey Dec. 1 — World AIDS Day — and ran each day for approximately 21.1 kilometres after working her regular job with Nova Scotia Power.

“It went fabulous!” said an enthusiastic Johnston. “I finished in the 14 days — I didn’t miss one day — I ran through three snowstorms and I felt great.”

Johnston raised upwards of $11,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and is continuing to accept donations through the foundation’s website (http://stephenlewisfoundation.akaraisin.com/Pledge/Participant/Home.aspx?seid=2660&pid=202186&mid=9). According to the A Dare to Remember website, Johnston is number four on a list of the top five fundraisers.

Johnston, who is originally from Sydney, was inspired to make a difference after reading a book by Globe and Mail correspondent Stephanie Nolen, who spent five years reporting in Africa.

In Nolen’s book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, the author mentions the work of Stephen Lewis and the Stephen Lewis Foundation.
Johnston later saw Lewis on a Canadian television program discussing his A Dare to Remember campaign to encourage everyday people to help turn the tide of HIV-AIDS.

Johnston, who runs regularly, said she thought of her dare to run the 300-km trail while out for a run. Friends ran with her or followed in their vehicles.
Johnston said before she finished the dare Dec. 14, there was a blinding snowstorm that closed parts of the trail. She said at the time there were no vehicles out on the highway but she continued to run.

She said overall the experience wasn’t as difficult as she had expected.

“I think I was running on excitement or something,” she said. “I had not a twinge of stiffness. I woke up every morning as if I hadn’t even run.”
Johnston said she kept thoughts of the millions of Africans living with HIV, many who cannot access treatment, in her head as she ran.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, as of 2008, an estimated 22.4 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were diagnosed as HIV-positive, out of 33 million HIV patients worldwide. Last year 1.4 million Africans died because of the disease.

For more information on A Dare to Remember visit, www.adaretoremember.com.

“I didn’t expect it at all. It has been amazing how supportive people are,” Dunphy smiled.

With a self-described ambitious $3,000 fundraising goal, Dunphy said she never expected to reach her final tally.

“It was great to be able to do a dare in support of grassroots organizations in Africa who are turning the tide against AIDS,” Dunphy said.

Proceeds from participants who took the Dare to Remember program challenge will support community-based organizations working to prevent HIV/AIDS in Africa. Groups provide counselling and education about HIV prevention, care and treatment, distribute food, medication and necessities, reach sick and vulnerable people through home-based health care, help orphans and vulnerable children access education and work through grief, support grandmothers caring for grandchildren and provide emergency re-constructive surgery, HIV testing and counselling and psychological support to women who have been sexually assaulted.

Dunphy said she is proud of the amount she raised and everyone who supported her. “I think it is going to leave a big imprint.” Dunphy added most of her contributions have been personal donations, although local businesses have also pitched in.

In her on-line pitch to would-be contributors, Dunphy said a “donation will make such a difference to the incredible men and women transforming lives and restoring hope to communities in Africa.”

Along with friends, family and word of mouth, Dunphy said social networking and the Internet were key components of her fundraiser. “That helped a lot,” she said.

Dunphy added her total was one of the highest organizers have seen from an individual. “It’s a sign of how much everyone’s support meant to me reaching the level,” she said.

Beginning this spring, Dunphy will complete her dare with each brush stroke as she paints a mural for permanent display in Antigonish. She will team up with James Farrell, a former NSCAD classmate, to complete the creation.

“I have some ideas, but I am not sure what we are going to do,” Dunphy said, noting the mural will appear on one of the local MacLeod Group buildings.

Dunphy learned more about the campaign from her friend and Stephen Lewis Foundation member Alexis MacDonald, a former X-tending Hope Partnership director.

“Of course, I was interested because it is such a great cause, but it was also appealing because it sounded like something fun to be part of,” Dunphy said. “It really appealed to me. Basically, I wanted to do something that would take me out of my comfort zone,” she added.

She has been part of art shows, but Dunphy said completing the community mural will be “something different.” “It is going to be a challenge for me,” Dunphy said.

The artist added she is excited to be able to contribute something to the beauty of the community. “They are great to see in small towns; they add character,” she said about public art projects.

Dunphy added she will keep her supporters updated on the progress and completion of her dare. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said.

Dunphy was not only the person from the area who took the Dare to Remember challenge. “Everyone did great,” Dunphy said. Christina Connolly of Guysborough raised more than $1,500 with her walk/run. The Antigonish Junior Bulldogs raised $500 when they walked around town with 10-litre water jugs over their heads, like many women in Africa do everyday. “Everyone did a phenomenal job,” Antigonish event organizer Mike Murphy, who also completed a dare, said.

Alex McPhedran approached Dr. Cameron with a dare, as part of the A Dare to Remember campaign. The campaign, initiated by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, involves individuals or groups completing dares in order to raise awareness and money for AIDS in Africa.

“It was really completely (Alex’s) initiative,” says Dr. Cameron, assistant professor in the Department of International Development Studies. “She dared me to dare the class. Then together we cooked up this idea that if 30 students took on dares, then I would do a dare, suggested by one of them.”

He saved his dare for the last class of the term. As guest lecturer and fellow IDS professor Matthew Schnurr, wrapped up his talk, Dr. Schnurr surprised the class by playing the Superman theme song. Suddenly, Dr. Cameron burst from the door near the bottom of the Scotiabank auditorium, dressed in his spandex.

With incredible energy and enthusiasm, Dr. Cameron whizzed around the lecture area, leaping onto desks as part of a skit that mocked the progression of international development studies.

He started as heroic “Dependence Man,” here to save backwards, traditional societies from themselves. Dr. Schnurr would then point a problem with the hero’s purpose. So, Dr. Cameron morphed from “Dependence Man” to “Post-Development Man” to “Sustainable Development Man” to “Sustainable Development Person.”

The class certainly enjoyed the skit, laughing throughout the whole thing and cheering at the end.

“I was impressed. Everyone was very impressed,” says Ms. McPhedran, 20. “I thought it was very intelligent – the combination of theory and class work into a very educational skit.”

Dr. Cameron says that he responded to the dare with enthusiasm for several reasons. “It’s important, especially in an intro to IDS class, that students have the sense that they are not powerless and that individual actions are important,” he says.

“Also, that we can laugh and have fun. We can deal with these serious questions, but have fun doing it. We don’t have to be all dour and depressed all the time.”

Ms. McPhedran adds, “It’s a very easy way to fund raise too. You get to do something that you want and that’s fun and exciting or different.”
John Cameron, Alex McPhedran
John Cameron aka Sustainable Development Person and Alex McPhedran, who made the dare. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Ms. McPhedran, an IDS and Gender and Women’s Studies major, completed two dares herself. One was a dare to talk about sex. She partnered up with the Halifax Slam Poetry Team at the Just Us cafe on Spring Garden to talk about sex and the stigma surrounding it.

Her second dare was Dares to Walk for Everyday Heroes. On November 21, she and eight other people walked downtown wearing red capes to symbolize those who have AIDS or are affected by AIDS.

She says that A Dare to Remember campaign is great because you can do whatever you want to do. “It’s pretty limitless,” she explains.

Ms. McPhedran suggested Dr. Cameron could make his skit a regular event for his Intro to Development I class.

“Well I just need to be dared,” responds Dr. Cameron with a smile. “If enough students next year get on board with their dares, then – what is it? – Sustainable Development Person might reappear again.”

Carol DeVarennes has been an avid follower of the Stephen Lewis Foundation for three years. This year she heard about their most recent campaign, A Dare To Remember, which immediately caught her interest.

"I asked my family if they would be interested in joining me to do a dare," said DeVarennes. They decided their dare would be a polar bear dip into Georgian Bay from their cottage in Thornbury on Dec. 19.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation has been fighting HIV/AIDS in 15 African countries since 2003. Its purpose is to aid women suffering from HIV/AIDs, children who are orphaned by the disease and grandmothers who are taking care of the orphans.

Their Campaign A Dare To Remember is to dare people across the world to do something for AIDS in Africa, and raise money while performing their dare.

"This campaign is meaningful on so many levels -- creating awareness in a highly creative and meaningful way, getting people to stop and think about the truly extraordinary things that ordinary people are doing in Africa every single day, and of course, raising money that will get directly into the hands of the people who need it the most," said DeVarennes.

The goal of Carol, John, Ted, Jordan, Leigh and their dog Tofino is to raise $2,000. At the moment they have raised $1,315.

"We are all looking forward to doing it, but I'm not sure I would be able to say we're excited. We're all a bit nervous about just how cold that Georgian Bay water will be," said DeVarennes.

The DeVarennes-Starr family is happy to spread the word about the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

"I was walking by a canvasser on the street and he recognized me because he was an editor on a show I was on. He said I would be great for their Dare to Remember program, so I talked to some friends and came up with the idea of doing stand-up comedy for twenty-four hours. I don't know why I said twenty-four hours...I think people would have been impressed if I said six."

From 6 p.m. on Monday, November 2 until 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, Thornton and his team (writers, supporters, girlfriend) will take residence at the Comedy Bar. "The writers (some of whom include other local comedy gems Norm Sousa from Punch Drysdale and Craig Brown from the Sketchersons, plus a whack of others) will take shifts working with me, and a few people are going to try to stay the whole time. I said I was going to do this crazy thing and they said, 'that sounds absolutely insane. I'll do that.'" The long haul won't resemble the rapid-fire, attention-challenged Robot Chicken-esque humour of Thornton's ensemble Comedy Network program, Hotbox, but Thornton does say he'll have some flexibility. Meaning, he'll have the internet. "People can Twitter me jokes, and there will also be an opportunity for people to watch from home." So you don't even have to miss House.

So far, other dare takers have included local luminaries such as Jack Layton (busked on the Danforth!), George Stroumboulopoulos (switching up his wardrobe!), and Stephen Lewis himself (singing on TV with The Arkells! "He's the cutest," Thornton says about Lewis and his rock star debut), and Thornton is happy to be among them. "Africa and the AIDS problem [seem] so huge and so far away, and as a human it can make you feel so helpless. If I can help a little bit, that would be nice." Everyone, go have your nap. Because Torontoist double-dog dares you to watch the entire twenty-four hour set. Chickens.

Entry to the hilarious-a-thon is $5, or, donations towards Pat Thornton's dare can be made in any denomination on his fundraising page. All proceeds go to the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

My most recent adventure was for a good cause: to raise money and awareness for the work of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Galvanized to action by the plight of African women left to raise their grandchildren after their own children perished in the continent’s AIDS epidemic, Grandmothers to Grandmothers chapters across the country dared Canadians to do something extraordinary last week to highlight their counterparts’ heroic efforts to keep their families safe and healthy every day.

Specifically, Flamborough’s own Grandmother of Steel, Lisbie Rae, dared me.

When  Paul Kovachik,  owner of Spectrum Airways on Bell School Line in North Burlington, heard that my first-ever flight was for charity, he didn’t hesitate to sign me up for a sightseeing tour. And that was that.

I arrived at the Spectrum clubhouse unperturbed by the fact that the drizzling rain was now accompanied by a light fog and steady wind. I even refrained from exclaiming how young our pilot looked and asking to see his driver’s licence. But when I got a close-up view of our plane – a nifty little Cessna 172 – I was surprised by its size. Picture the interior of a family car, with about two-thirds the leg-room.

But any worries I may have entertained about separating body and soul from terra firma soon vanished. Pilot Bill Collins has not only been flying for six years, he is a flight college graduate and has been teaching student pilots for the past year and a half.

In addition to going up with some eight students per day, he also pilots sightseeing tours and photo flights. He assured me that he had already done an exterior check of the plane, and proceeded to check every knob, gauge, door, window and seat belt before firing up the engine.

And then we were off, taxiing down the grass runway (the best option to take advantage of the day’s wind direction), and lifting off into the great grey sky.

Anxious to drink in the scenery, which despite the weather was glowing in all its fall finery, I had a difficult time orienting myself at first. Collins patiently pointed out the landmarks: the Nelson quarry (which also serves as a guide for pilots heading back to the air strip), the Freelton water tower, Flamboro Downs, the Rockton storage tanks.

Spectrum doesn’t have an air traffic controller, explained Collins, outlining the various techniques pilots use to navigate, including visual markers, radar, constant radio communication with Spectrum staff on the ground and “pi-reps” – pilot reports.

“There is no risk of error,” he assured me.

I was starting to relax, pretending that my feet were resting on the floor of a car, rather than above thin air. Then it was my turn to steer.
Horizon

Collins showed me how to use the horizon to keep the plane steady, then handed over control. All went well, until I noticed that the windshield was slowly starting to point further upward. (No matter what he says, it’s not like steering a car. Cars don’t go up and down.)

After leveling us out again, then executing a smooth left-hand turn, I gratefully handed the controls back over to Collins – and I unclenched my toes and sat back to enjoy the ride.

Flamborough, from above, is simply vast: unending farm fields are punctuated by numerous horse practice tracks and golf courses, with the straight black ribbon of Hwy. 6 slicing through its centre; Waterdown buildings I’ve known all my life on the ground are familiar and alien at the same time and the escarpment, even from above, is too large to take in.

Then, just a little bit of jostling and we’re touching down on the grass, earthbound again.

Collins gives our touchdown a score of eight out of ten.

“A pilot judges the flight solely on the landing,” he explained, adding that as an instructor, he wants his students to learn through experience – so he’s been through a hard landing or two.

For me, the whole experience rates a 10: not only have I expanded my own horizons, I’ve almost reached my fundraising goal, thanks to the generous support of friends, family and co-workers.

One small feat of daring has made a difference.

Excited about the opportunity to learn a thing or two about cows, I was surprised at how quickly farm owner Janet Fennema Ringelberg put me to work. She must have had some faith in me – all decked out in my comfy yoga pants and plaid shirt.

Minutes into my dare, I was introduced to Andrea, a calm and friendly cow. I was handed a pail and instructed to grab her teats and start milking. Startled by the simplicity of it all, I did just that.

I thought maybe before collecting the purebred Holstein’s milk that the cow and I could get acquainted; share a laugh over a bundle of hay or an oat cake or something. But when you have 50 cows that need to be milked twice a day, there isn’t much time for small talk.

Since Andrea didn’t seem too preoccupied by the fact that a stranger was huddled near her underbelly, I started to pull. I must have been doing something right as milk was squirting out.

Thrilled by my accomplishments so far, my next challenge was to aim the milk in the collection pail – I failed miserably. It was one of those hit-and-miss kind of scenarios.

Although I wasn’t milking Andrea for very long – maybe a few minutes – I realized all the hard work that is involved in running a successful dairy operation like the Ringelbergs’.

As the muscles in my arms started to tingle and burn – a clear indication that milking a cow isn’t as easy as it appears – I asked Janet for a few pointers.

As she ducked down  and  milked  Andrea,  I  had  to  scrape  my  jaw off the floor. I’m not sure if there is such a thing as squirts per minute, but if so, Janet’s rate was off the charts, putting my (minor) accomplishments to shame.

The Fennemas, Janet’s parents, first established the Troy dairy farm in the 1970s. But things were run much differently then. According to Janet, her mom, Joanne, used to have to milk cows by hand day in and day out.

Today, the Ringelbergs rely on machines to obtain the milk. Thankful for the advances in technology, Janet explained that milking the farm’s 50 cows takes approximately an hour and a half, twice a day.

Up bright and early at 5 a.m. the family heads to the barn to begin the day. Between milking, other chores need to be completed, including feeding. After school, the Ringelbergs’ four children also pitch in.

According to Janet, each cow consumes a calculated amount of grains and hay. The calves receive much of the milk collected from the morning and afternoon milkings and the family, too, enjoys the milk produced on site.

A tank at the front of the fire engine red barn can hold up to 4,000 litres of milk. However, the family only fills the reservoir with approximately 2,500 litres, which is picked up every two days by a Guelph-based company for processing.

In order to continue to be milked, a cow must have a calf each year.

The animals, which are artificially bred at the Troy farm, aren’t bred until they are at least two years old. Youth, including Janet’s children, work with the calves in local 4-H clubs.

After spending some time speaking with Janet and learning about a day in the life of a dairy farmer, I was pleased to learn that the calves housed in the barn were friendly and pretty social. A sucker for ‘baby’ animals, I had a great time playing with the tiny cows.

The darling little creatures were curious and playful; they seemed to enjoy licking my hands with their sandpaper-like tongues and rubbing their nose goo on my clothing – something that surprisingly didn’t seem to faze me.

Pleased with my first cow milking experience, thankful for Janet’s tips and hospitality and Andrea’s patience, I successfully completed my dare for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, raising $205 for the organization - $5 more than my targeted amount.

Along the way, I gained a new appreciation for local farmers, who 365 days a year are hard at work feeding families – including mine – and I am truly thankful there are individuals like Janet Ringelberg and her family who are dedicated farmers and proud of their role in our community.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation began the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign in 2006 to try to make a difference for Africa’s grandmothers and since that time a national movement of over 200 grandmother groups with a membership of over 5,000 women has blossomed in Canada. These grassroots groups are a lifeline for the African communities, raising money to fund programs, supply health-care, distribute food and provide HIV/AIDS education, etc.

Saturday evening, Invermere’s GoGo Sisters, or “Grannies” as they are affectionately called, hosted a fundraiser with a twist. About 90 members of the community were treated to an African-inspired dinner at Christ Church Trinity. The meal started with a delicious beet salad, garnished with pecans and feta cheese. It was followed by the main course, a traditional dish with a very long history, called Bobotie. Originally, the ingredients included pork and mutton, (beef is the usual meat nowadays) and vegetables cooked in a curry sauce, garnished with banana slices, chopped tomatoes and orange peppers, coconut and chutney, and served over a bed of fluffy rice. There was even a vegetarian version for those who preferred it. Guests were instructed to “smoosh” the ingredients together. What a delight to all the hungry palates! Dessert and tea and coffee rounded off the meal.

Special guest speaker, Dr. Ilona Hale, daughter-in-law of local resident, Alice Hale, has had a long career as a volunteer overseas. She began at the age of twenty, in Fiji, where she taught English and science. She also spent time in Zaire, India, South Africa and Bolivia. Ilona, her husband and their two children have recently returned from two years in Malawi, Africa and have settled down in Kimberley. BC.

She showed slides and talked of her experiences as a medical doctor volunteering in Malawi. Their family fell in love with the friendly folks they came to know and marveled at how happy they seemed in spite of the hardships of their lives. She also spoke about the high rates of mortality in newborns and their mothers and the lack of training for medical workers. Much of her time in Malawi was spent educating these workers.

There were artifacts to view and lovely hand-made jewellery from Malawi to purchase, as well as some great door-prizes.

“People have assumptions of librarians as passive, and we wanted to debunk myths about the mundane librarian,” said student Stephen Spong. The project sprung from a class assignment for a library sciences course. When professor Nadia Caidi gave her students the option of compiling an annotated bibliography or fundraising for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Spong—along with Katya Pereyaslavska, Cybil Stephens, Sarah Jones, and Brandon Weigel—opted for what they called “Street Reference.” Pereyaslavska said they had a little over eight weeks to brainstorm ideas.

Stephens was surprised to find out that many pedestrians did not know that librarians require a Master’s degree to find work. “Most librarians who work on a desk have a Master’s degree,” she said.

The project was advertised through various libraries, and librarians gave tips on how to make the idea work. “Random librarians also stopped by during the event. One librarian brought a box of cookies and was eager to help out,” Pereyaslavska said. “The faculty has also been very supportive, and the student council had given us mugs to sell in return for donations.”

Equipped with laptops from the faculty of information, reference books, and (most importantly) coffee, the students fielded 63 questions on Saturday. Spong said they answered all queries, including, “Where does the name Saskatchewan come from?” and “Are investments in South African farming indicative of a larger trend?”

The team said their aim was to raise $500, but they surpassed their intended goal with a successful turnout. They also said that the assignment provided some on-the-job learning experience.

Library science students answered these questions Saturday. Can you?

•     Why do musicians tune to A (440 HZ) and why has this changed over the years?
•     Why can some planes fly upside down?
•     How does one gain refugee status in Canada?
•     Are investments in South African farming indicative of a larger trend?
•     When was the first mummy discovered?
•     How old is the oldest mummy?
•     What sports are part of the decathlon?
•     Where does the name Saskatchewan come from?
•     Are there any English language theatres in Shanghai?

 

Celebrity models strutted 24 designs from Canada's top designers for the Dare to Wear Love fashion show.

It's the largest public "dare" of the organization's new fundraising initiative "A Dare to Remember" which is coaxing people from across the country to take on challenges of all kinds to raise funds to support African grassroots organizations working on the frontline of the AIDS pandemic.

Brian Bailey, David Dixon, Evan Biddell, Wayne Clark, Farley Chatto, Linda Lundstrom and Lucian Matis were just some of the designers who took on Hoax Couture's dare to create luxe gowns from six yards of different but equally colourful African fabric.

"This is only the beginning of this venture," said Chris Tyrell, one of the designers behind the Hoax Couture design label, opening the show.

He told the more than 1,200 guests attending the event that he was inspired to take up the challenge because he was raised by his grandmother when orphaned at a young age -- and the story of Lewis' efforts to raise funds for AIDS orphans, and the grandmothers who raise them, struck a chord with him.

An auction of the show's one-of-a-kind garments will happen at a later date with proceeds benefiting AIDS orphans of Sub-Saharan Africa and the elderly relatives who raise them, said Lewis.

The former United Nations special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa said that while many organization do good work, little aid gets to the worst-hit areas where people "live and die."

"That's where our foundations puts it's money," said Lewis, promising he'd take funds directly to "traumatized and bewildered" children and their "resilient" caretakers.

The show featured dresses from several of those who presented collections during the spring-summer shows, as well as top talent who did not.

While the designs were spectacular, it was the strutting of celebrity models which had the crowd revved up.

MTV host Jessi Cruickshank, in an outfit from Brose, entertained the crowd with her sultry walk and teased photographer at the end of the runway.

Wearing Izzy Camilleri, singer Jully Black strutted off the runway and into the lap of interior designer-turned TV star Steven Sabados' lap to a roar of approval from the crowd.

The stunning outfits were as varied as their creators: long and short, simple and complex. Some designers added other fabrics and accoutrements to embellish their gowns.

Lundstrom's design stood out as what looked to be a wide, fur-lined shawl collar was spectacularly tossed down to become a luxurious cape. Graphic fabric used by Greta Constantine was cut in such a way that the derriere of the dress looked somewhat like cat's eyes.

Comrag's bejewelled tuxedo-style coat featured floor-length tails, with a miniscule cummerbund-looking style skirt. Pam Chorley paired her donated green and black fabric with hair-like stands down the waist and also from wrist to elbow on long black gloves.

Lucian Matis' mini dress appeared to have used every inch of his fabric with layer-upon-layer of ruffles on the bodice.

Fashion Design Council of Canada president Robin Kay vowed that a similar event would also take place next year to the applause of other city celebrities such as Canadian Idol judge Jake Gold and radio host Jian Ghomeshi.

Kay declared this latest edition of Toronto's fashion week, the second largest in North America, a resounding success. In it's new larger venue on King Street West, she said attendance was up 300%.

International media attendance included some newcomers: the Huffington Post and New York's Fashion Week Daily which declares the event "a feast for they eyes."

Dare to Wear Love: Fashion and philanthropy converged on the catwalk with an all-star roster of Canadian designers lending their talents to craft one-of-a-kind creations in support of those in need a world away.

Stylewatchers were packed to the rafters of the runway room for the inaugural "Dare to Wear Love" show. Produced by Toronto custom design label Hoax Couture and the Fashion Design Council of Canada, the continent-bridging event saw some two dozen Canadian designers and labels create customized designs from fabrics sourced from Africa.

The event was in support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which delivers funds to grassroots community-based projects working to fight AIDS in Africa.

Each designer was given six yards of fabric with which to turn their vision into creation.

The result was a stunning collection of vibrant colourful prints married with beads, bows and ruffles that spanned the style spectrum from flirty cocktail creations to floor-skimming showstoppers.

Notable Canadian talents also braved the runway in teetering heels and larger-than-life designs, bringing a playful attitude and spirit to their catwalk that pumped up the crowd.

Singer Jully Black strutted her stuff before the cameras, even doing a little booty-shaking in a slick racerback dress.

Toronto New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, wife of federal NDP Jack Layton, let loose in a stunning ruffle-tiered dress with black-and-white prints of children's faces designed by Peach Beserk.

And "eTalk" reporter Traci Melchor channelled 50s era glam with a bold blue and pink number with an asymmetrical tulle lined underlay.

Amid the fun, the social significance of the cause was hammered home with statistics on HIV-AIDS in Africa projected on-screen, and heartwrenching first-hand accounts of meeting impoverished citizens on the continent that Stephen Lewis recounted to a hushed audience.

Backstage after the show, Lewis said he was "moved and overwhelmed" by the amount of effort the designers put into each outfit.

"It was really quite lovely," he said. "I never thought the fabrics would be turned into such memorable moments and it speaks strongly I think to the way in which everything was brought together tonight, that the fashion world would join in helping the African world. I really like that."

Lewis admitted being"highly skeptical" when he first heard about the idea. "But I was wrong, as I so often am," he said, adding they "obviously pulled it off."

Organizers hope to raise $100,000 to benefit the foundation.

Lewis said even a few hundred dollars can transform a community's life, and that the foundation would use the resources to provide food for orphaned kids, books, uniforms and health-care.

Hoax Couture's Jim Searle said they plan to make the fashion show an annual event.

When asked if he would make a return appearance to the front row, Lewis suggested he may want to go one step further, and take a turn on the catwalk.

"I'm looking for another career," he said. "It might as well be the runway."

Pat McDonagh: From ice scream scoops served to stylewatchers to the colourfully opulent cakes on the catwalk, it was pretty evident before McDonagh's designs hit the runway that even more colourful confections would be in store. The source of inspiration for the line was hardly by accident, as it was sponsored by Baskin-Robbins.

The designer took the dessert theme to the hilt, with colour stories documented as flavours, and the incorporation of all things ice cream into the design. Cone shaped-pockets on a chocolate-hued dress, print on lapel, and even a bathing suit and bottom pairing designed to look like a vanilla scoop.

However when McDonagh veered towards more classic creations, she hit her stride with the luxe closing groups of the collection, boasting romantic ruffle blouses, rainbow brocades and a succession of sweeping dresses, from a lush turquoise cowl-back sequin number to silky dual-toned creations.

Lucian Matis: The silhouette was loose and the colours muted, but the looks were anything but pared down in the latest offerings from the Toronto-based designer.

Matis contrasted hard and soft, mixing lush liquid satin with matte sequins, jerseys with tulle and chiffon in a subdued colour palette of greys and dusty pinks, with a sprinking of gunmetal-coloured studs as accents on dotting hemlines and waistlines.

He demonstrated his deft ability with draping, adding texture and softness with gathered and rippled fabrics accentuating cascading hemlines.

Matis brought his scaled-down vision of the Big Top with clown and juggler prints on draped, asymmetrical dresses.

Model Monika Schnarre closed out the show in a lavish gown boasting a crystal collar, sweetheart bustier and smooth silk draping that Matis designed in support of Look Good Feel Better.

Jessica Biffi: Day-Glo graffiti, street art, and technology were the inspirations for the edgy streetwear-inspired separates from the "Project Runway Canada" runner-up, with their ample supply of blindingly bright hues from fluorescent greens and pinks alongside heavy dollops of gold.

Hemlines headed skyward, with peek-a-boo short-shorts and shortall jumpers baring plenty of leg for those not shy about showing a little skin. Subtle pleating added definition to slim-cut satin culottes, and amplified the hem of a creamy gold brocade jacket.

Soft jersey numbers dialled down the fiery hues with Biffi bringing a more delicate touch to cowl hoodies and asymmetrical jumpers in powder pink and creamy peach, while giving volume and boost with architecturally square-cut ribbon panelled tiered dresses.

"I definitely have a love for the super feminine, very flowy pieces, but structured and tailoring is really where I love to go with my pieces," she said in an interview."

Brandon R. Dwyer: Brandon R. Dwyer was clearly in the mood for love if his latest designs are any indication, with the presentation of breezy blouses and body-contouring dresses.

The "Project Runway Canada" alum added delicate touches to give translucent draped georgette blouses a hint of dazzle and romanticism. There was colourful striping on gathered necklines and a cascade of carefully dotted Swarovski crystals.

Flirty, body-hugging dresses and minis boasted flared hems, bubble bottoms and tulle draping. And the trend of underwear as outerwear remains, in full silk taffeta bustiers and corseted tops in lush taffeta and smooth charmeuse.

Dwyer went bold with rich pairings of colourful hues, favouring striping as accents on necklines and adorning A-line skirted bottoms in copper-tinged orange and cream, and turquoise and black.

Day 5 also featured collections from Frame, Ula Zukowska, and Canadian designs featured at Gotstyle, a Toronto menswear retailer.

Fashion Week concludes Saturday with its closing night party.

On Toronto's busy Danforth Avenue, many locals were surprised to see one of Canada's most well-known politicians busking with his acoustic guitar.

Layton was singing to raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which is dedicated to fighting HIV and AIDS in Africa.

Lewis, a former Ontario NDP leader, recently finished up his tenure as the United Nations' special envoy to the region.

On Saturday afternoon, Layton sang for about two hours and had a chance to chat with curious onlookers and political supporters alike.

Layton's performance, which occurred in his home riding of Toronto-Danforth, comes a few weeks after Prime Minister Stephen Harper performed a Beatles tune with acclaimed cellist Yo Yo Ma at the National Arts Centre Gala in Ottawa.

"One person, in a documentary I saw, had to walk two hours to get to a well. Holditup. Thenwalktwohourshome," said the 43-year-old former Olympian who is also a Calgary firefighter. "One co-walker said to me (on Thursday), 'What would your life be like if you had to get water every day?'

"We both agreed we'd be thirsty guys."

During the nationwide Dare Week --an initiative from the Stephen Lewis Foundation'sADaretoRemember, raising awareness to turn the tide of HIV/ AIDS in Africa by daring people to help out--and seeing the African struggles first-hand, Gibson was motivated to make a difference. Just a year and a half ago, he and his wife Jen adopted two boys, Gedion, 5, and Taye, 2, from Ethiopia.

So, joined by fire fighters from Station No. 15 in Calgary, members of his Olympic family and members of his son's school, Gibson started walking Thursday and hauled in around$18,000 for the charity.

"It was difficult but I wasn't even doing it the authentic African way," said Gibson who had eight others carrying waterjugswithhimtostartbeforeeventually meeting the kids from Gedion's school with half a kilometre to go.

"We have a much better understanding of what it's like for people that have to go through this every day."

Canadian speedskater and fellow 2006 Olympic gold and silver medallist Clara Hughes stopped by and donated money to show her support--but was minus a water jug.

"I can't carry that much weight right now because I probably wouldn't be able to skate for two months," said a chuckling Hughes, who just returned to Calgary from the 2009 World Cup team selection races at the Richmond Oval in Vancouver.

"I just think Duff is fantastic...sometimes, training for the Olympics can be tiring but for me, (Thursday) was just a positive thing.

"I've done a lot of things with Right to Play(an international humanitarian organization using sport to improve health in disadvantaged areas of the world) . . . I've been to Ethiopia and I've seen the poverty, the suffering, and the struggle.

"Being Canadian, we just have no idea what it's like on the other side of the world for millions and millions of kids."

Taking on the challenge to help raise awareness for the Stephen Lewis Foundation's Dare to Remember Campaign and to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa, Duff was joined by a number of Calgarians willing to make the Journey Through Calgary with him, water jugs and donation money in hand.

Info on the cause can be found at www.adaretoremem ber.com/dares_celebrity.cfm.

“One person, in a documentary I saw, had to walk two hours to get to a well. Hold it up. Then walk two hours home,” said the 43-year-old former Olympian who is also a Calgary firefighter. “One co-walker said to me (on Thursday), ‘What would your life be like if you had to get water every day?’

“We both agreed we’d be thirsty guys.”

During the nationwide Dare Week — an initiative from the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s A Dare to Remember, raising awareness to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa by daring people to help out — and seeing the African struggles first-hand, Gibson was motivated to make a difference. Just a year and a half ago, he and his wife Jen adopted two boys, Gedion, 5, and Taye, 2, from Ethiopia.

So, joined by fire fighters from Station No. 15 in Calgary, members of his Olympic family and members of his son’s school, Gibson started walking Thursday and hauled in around $18,000 for the charity.

“It was difficult but I wasn’t even doing it the authentic African way,” said Gibson who had eight others carrying water jugs with him to start before eventually meeting the kids from Gedion’s school with half a kilometre to go.

“We have a much better understanding of what it’s like for people that have to go through this every day.”

Canadian speedskater and fellow 2006 Olympic gold and silver medallist Clara Hughes stopped by and donated money to show her support — but was minus a water jug.

“I can’t carry that much weight right now because I probably wouldn’t be able to skate for two months,” said a chuckling Hughes, who just returned to Calgary from the 2009 World Cup team selection races at the Richmond Oval in Vancouver.

“I just think Duff is fantastic . . . sometimes, training for the Olympics can be tiring but for me, (Thursday) was just a positive thing.

“I’ve done a lot of things with Right to Play (an international humanitarian organization using sport to improve health in disadvantaged areas of the world) . . . I’ve been to Ethiopia and I’ve seen the poverty, the suffering, and the struggle.

“Being Canadian, we just have no idea what it’s like on the other side of the world for millions and millions of kids.”

Chris Tyrell issued a weighty challenge to two dozen fellow Toronto designers a few weeks ago: Turn six metres of traditional African waxed cotton into hot, rather than haute, couture that can help fashion change in the world.

The results of that unusual dare from Tyrell and his Hoax Couture partner Jim Searle – a wild mix of everything from whimsical womenswear to down outerwear – will be paraded on the runway Friday night during the final show of Toronto Fashion Week.

"No one said `No'," says Tyrell, listing off busy big names from Lida Baday to Wayne Clark, who eagerly took up the challenge to be part of the Dare to Wear Love fashion event, aimed at helping raise $100,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Other events are planned for the designs, which will eventually be auctioned off.

Baday describes her creation as "a lot of print and a little dress."

Pam Chorley, owner of Fashion Crimes boutique, trussed up her 17-year-old daughter Jasmine in a corseted gown evoking the animal imagery of Africa – snakes, panthers, the manes of lions.

"Fashion is all about change – about change in style, in length, in colour," says Chorley. "That's what we're trying to do with this show – to change attitudes, to change how things have been done in Africa."

Designers were able to choose their own models and select from 75 bold fabrics donated by the Lewis foundation.

Toronto MP Olivia Chow will strut the runway in a Peach Berserk dress, Canadian singer Jully Black will model a gown by Izzy Camilleri, while model/actress Monika Schnarre will wear a Lucian Matis creation.

The fashion event is the largest public dare of the Lewis foundation's new fundraising initiative, A Dare to Remember, in which people across the country are taking on dares of all kinds to help raise money and awareness.

"This event shows the real width and breadth of the design community," says Tyrell. "Yes, it's not every single designer in the city but, come on, we only have 20 minutes."

The 9 p.m. show is sold out, but for a $30 donation at www.daretowearlove.com you can get into the 10 p.m. after-party in the Fashion Week tent.

Landsberg-Lewis, executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation and daughter of longtime activists Stephen Lewis and Michele Landberg, talked to the duo about the foundation's work, specifically efforts centred around their Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.

The initiative raises funds to support grandmothers in Africa often left to live with the repercussions of the HIV-AIDS pandemic that has ravaged the continent, by assisting with items like food, housing grants and school fees for their grandchildren.

Searle said the program struck a particular chord with Tyrell, who was raised by his grandmother because he was orphaned at a young age, and the pair thought the initiative was something they could throw their support behind.

Not surprisingly, Searle and Tyrell invoked their fashion expertise while recruiting the talents of other notable names in the design world.

The culmination of their collaboration will be revealed on the catwalk Friday night as Toronto's LG Fashion Week cedes its prime closing night spot to "Dare To Wear Love" produced by Hoax Couture.

An all-star roster of 25 Canadian designers, including Lida Baday, Brian Bailey, David Dixon, Evan Biddell and Greta Constantine, have crafted designs from fabrics sourced from Africa and purchased by the foundation.

"Virtually everybody we spoke to thought it was a brilliant idea and climbed aboard," said Searle of the designers.

While designers were provided with the colourful African prints, they were given free reign when it came to their creation.

"We let them do something that's appropriate to their own image of what fashion should be and what their company mission statement is all about," Searle said.

The event also recruited some familiar faces to model the creations. Hoax Couture's design will be worn by "eTalk" reporter Traci Melchor, while singer Jully Black will wear a design crafted by Izzy Camilleri.

Searle said they plan to auction the designs later, and are in negotiations with another event in the spring where they may be able to show them again.

"We want to use the garments to build awareness for the need in Africa for funds to help fight HIV and AIDS."

All proceeds will go toward the foundation, and Searle said they're hoping to raise $100,000. Both Landsberg-Lewis and Stephen Lewis are slated to attend Friday's highly anticipated show.

"It's a great event for a great cause and we're pretty excited," said Searle.

Why does a man need a dress to raise money? “I wanted to do something outside my comfort zone,” said McBurney. “It certainly attracted some attention and got people wondering what the heck I’m doing.”

As part of the Stephen Lewis “Dare to Remember” campaign, McBurney was dared to be bold on his bike as a way to raise money.

“In a town like Nelson, it’s hard to stand out just for riding a bike,” explained McBurney.

Looking for something bold and bike-related that he could do to fundraise, he took on the overpass project — something the Cycling Club had wanted done.

People made donations to the project, but all the workers and supplies were free, so all those donations went straight to the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

It took two days work to make the overpass, but still, that didn’t feel like enough for McBurney to feel like he’d met the dare. Then the idea of the dress came up.

“I had a [female] friend who was dared to wear a dress to work every day for a week, and I thought that was a good idea,” said McBurney. “I wore my dress to Oso Negro and told people what I was doing. That got a lot more people donating.”

In total, McBurney raised more than $1,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which helps people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa.

To contribute to his fundraising campaign check out his page under the “Dare to Remember” campaign at stephenlewisfoundation.org, go to “Sponsor Someone” and search Andrew McBurney.
 

By Elaine Smith

A pedestrian walking along Bloor Street passes familiar landmarks: the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the Factor Inwentash School of Social Work, the Varsity Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum, a library reference desk ...

Wait a minute, the pedestrian wonders. What is a library reference desk doing outdoors at the corner of Bloor Street and Avenue Road?

Good question. And one the budding reference librarians from the Faculty of Information will be happy to answer this Saturday, Oct. 24. The team of five students, plus a few librarians, will set up shop at Bloor and Avenue Road from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. armed with laptops. They'll take reference questions from all comers in return for donations to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a foundation dedicated to turning the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa. During the month of October, people nationwide are issuing and fulfilling dares of all kinds as a way to raise money to support the foundation's projects.

"The idea grew out of a class assignment for Foundations of Library and Information Sciences," said master's student Katya Pereyaslavska. "Our professor, Nadia Caidi, gave us the option of compiling an annotated bibliography or taking part in a fundraiser for the Stephen Lewis Foundation. A group of us merged and brainstormed and the project developed a life of its own."

Classmate Stephen Spong added, "We saw this as a way to participate in the Dare and still tie in the relevant elements of librarianship and reference work. We'll demonstrate the ease with which we can get information."

It's also a way to help change the prevailing stereotype of librarians, Spong said.

"Librarians have a stern, daunting image and we're trying to prevent that. We're there as ambassadors for the school and the city, too."

The Dare has been about eight weeks in the planning and the team is hoping to be blessed with good weather, although they'll be on hand rain or shine. They're curious about the kinds of questions they'll get from the public.

"We're expecting queries about directions and restaurant recommendations and perhaps legal or medical questions," said Pereyaslavska.

The team, which also includes students Cybil Stephens, Sarah Jones and Brandon Weigel, aims to raise $500 and say their professors and classmates have been extremely generous in supporting them.

However, once the day is over the work continues. The team still must write and submit a paper about the experience. Undoubtedly, their submission will contain answers to all possible questions.

Gibson not only reached that number today, he was informed an anonymous couple had agreed to match the amount, meaning Gibson's trek is guaranteed to raise a minimum $15,000.

"I was told the couple wishes to remain anonymous," said Gibson, the 2006 Olympic skeleton champion. "The communications director for the Stephen Lewis Foundation told me the couple had a message for me, ‘Dynamic duo dares Duff donors to double up.' We're thrilled."

Gibson, 41, came up with a novel dare after watching a television commercial detailing the harsh existence of a young African girl, who had to walk two hours to the closest well then fill a container and carry it home on her head.

The girl's plight resonated with Gibson and his wife Gen since they had adopted two young boys from Ethiopia in March of 2008. The Gibsons' story and their pledge to help others was reported in The Globe and Mail and drew donations from across the country, including one for $2,000 from Wtf Holdings in Nova Scotia.

Gibson said he will be walking from Canada Olympic Park in northwest Calgary before arriving at his oldest son's school. Children carrying small amounts of water will accompany him.

"I think the meaning of this Dare has attracted people," said Gibson.

As well as carrying water on his head for charity, Gibson is a fulltime firefighter and a national skeleton coach, who will be with the team when it competes at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“The café is not the same as school,” said Vanessa Valdivieso, an immigrant from Mexico who has been in Canada for eight months. “You don’t feel the same pressure here to get it right all the time. It’s friendly conversation. Here we talk about Canadian life.”

“We learn the idioms, the language of every day,” agreed Helene Villeneuve, who came to Canada from France four months ago.

The ESL Café is a partnership between the St. George’s Centre for ESL and the Lutherwood Employment Centre. Students enrolled in English classes or new immigrants seeking employment can drop in for coffee and conversation on Tuesday evenings.

Linda Kelly is an ESL instructor and the brains behind the talk-a-thon. She had participated in fundraisers for the Stephen Lewis Foundation in the past and was approached by staff there to take part in its current fundraising campaign, A Dare to Remember.

“We went with the dare thing and I thought, what would be the biggest challenge for them? Talking in English for an hour is very challenging, so we went with that,” Kelly said.

She started preparing participants about four weeks ago. They talked about the foundation and the work it does to help countries crippled by AIDS.

Then they talked about fundraising and the language participants would use to ask people to sponsor them.

“That was really difficult for some of them,” Kelly said. “Charities are riddled with corruption in some countries, so we had to cross some cultural barriers to do this. We practised the language of asking for sponsorship, too.”

They also came up with some discussion topics for the talk-a-thon. Every five minutes the group switched seats and launched into conversation with a new partner, covering topics like Canadian experiences, travel, family, food and hobbies.

“I write in a diary every day so I should be good at this,” said Hongyan Mei, a Chinese immigrant, when the subject of “self” was suggested.

“I play table tennis, I do yoga and I’m very healthy. That’s why I’m so skinny,” she said with a laugh.

“They are so motivated and so eager to learn,” said Brenda Vegso, who volunteers with the program. “Some have been coming to the café for years. They’ve become friends.”

“To do this was big, big deal.”

For more information about A Dare to Remember, visit www.stephenlewisfoundation.org or www.adaretoremember.com.

Dempsey pointed to her previous experiences in another exchange program as an important time for her.
“It was simultaneously the most challenging and exhilarating time of my life.”

Canada World Youth is an organization that develops educational and youth exchange programs to give young people a chance to experience other cultures and bring back what they have learned to their own communities.

The programs also enrich the host families by giving them the chance to experience other cultures as well, said Dempsey.

Dempsey currently oversees a group of 18 Canada World Youth exchange participants, nine from Canada and nine from Ghana.

The group is currently working on a Dare to Remember campaign which benefits the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a non-profit group that sends donations to grassroots organizations dealing with AIDS in Africa.

As part of the campaign, they will be wearing Halloween costumes all week and encourage people to approach them about donations or information.

Toronto, October 19, 2009 – This week, Canadians coast-to-coast will do something daring as part of A Dare to Remember, a nationwide challenge to help communities turn the tide of AIDS in Africa. Launched by the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF), A Dare to Remember invites Canadians to perform personal dares, set fundraising goals and encourage friends, family and colleagues to sponsor them. All proceeds will help support communities in the 15 African countries that have been hardest hit by HIV/AIDS.
 

Canadians are being asked to do their dare, declare their dare or dare someone else during Dare Week (October 17-25), and then complete their dares by World AIDS Day, December 1st.

Celebrities and citizens alike across the country are performing a wide range of memorable acts, such as:

• Hip-hop artist k-os will return to his first job at The Bay’s Queen Street toy department in Toronto today and George Stroumboulopoulos will reveal his dare on CBC’s The Hour this week.
• Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, will busk in his riding at Danforth and Logan on Saturday, October 24 from 3-5pm.
• Calgarians will witness Olympic Gold Medal winner Duff Gibson walk 12 km on October 22 with a 20L jug of water on his head to honour the distances women and girls must travel every day to fetch water, firewood and access health care in Africa.
• In Vancouver next week, Simon Fraser University students will wear “I dare you to hug me” signs and give out hugs across campus and downtown streets, as one of many dares to raise funds.
• Montrealers will see McGill University students perform an “art attack” where participants will gather and form a human piece of art on the main campus lawn.
• In Charlottetown, the Katamavik youth group will perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance all over the city throughout the week.
• Staff at lululemon athletica in Banff will dare to do one thing a day that scares them. Dares include 100 consecutive sun salutations, going vegan and working as a human mannequin in the store window.

“It’s remarkable to see the ingenuity and commitment people of all ages are showing across the country,” says Stephen Lewis, Chair of the SLF. “This isn’t just about doing something whimsical or novel, it’s about taking part in a national effort that will bring hope, life-saving services and critical support to thousands of individuals and communities across Africa. It’s about communities here standing in solidarity with communities thousands of miles away.”

To kick off Dare Week, Stephen Lewis performed his dare on CBC’s The Hour and sang “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” with Hamilton rock band The Arkells.

Other supporters who have already started fundraising include actors Natalie Brown (Sophie) and Amy Lalonde (Wild Roses) who are hosting a bake sale today at Toronto’s Union Station with fresh cookies made with honey they harvested during their dare to face their fear of bees. Romina D’Ugo (actress and top 20 finalist from last season’s So You Think You Can Dance Canada), Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo), Jake Gold (renowned artist manager and judge on CTV’s Canadian Idol), Ngozi Paul (star of Global TV’s Gemini-nominated Da Kink in My Hair) and Lorraine Segato (lead singer, Parachute Club) have all committed to fundraising and executing dares.

The official website (adaretoremember.com) offers the public 50 dare ideas and an opportunity to dare and sponsor their friends. Whether people choose to run a half-marathon, quit smoking, or take circus acrobatics lessons, the more daring the act, the more likely it will be to raise significant funds. Kristin Rowe, a woman in Nova Scotia plans to swim the English Channel in the spring!

On Friday, October 23, Hoax Couture and the Fashion Design Council of Canada will produce a fashion-forward closing night show featuring more than 25 of Canada’s top designers at Toronto’s LG Fashion Week beauty by L’Oreal. Kicking off at 9 p.m., a star-studded audience will experience the Dare to Wear Love show (www.daretowearlove.com), full of rich, eye-catching fabrics sourced from African communities who work with the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Designers include Lida Baday, Brian Bailey, Linda Lundström, Lucian Matis and many more. Dare to Wear Love organizers aim to raise $100,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Proceeds from all daring acts will be used by SLF to support community-based organizations in 15 sub-Saharan African countries. These grassroots groups provide counselling and education about HIV care, prevention and treatment; distribute food, medication and other necessities; reach the sick through home-based health care; help orphans and vulnerable children access education and work through their grief; and support grandmothers caring for their orphaned grandchildren.

For more information about A Dare to Remember, or to register a dare, visit www.adaretoremember.com

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For media inquiries, please contact:
James Loftus / Elyn Kirby Arscott
DDB Public Relations
416.963.4538 / 416.963.4539
James.Loftus@can.dbpr.com / Elyn.Kirby.Arscott@can.ddbpr.com

 

The Stephen Lewis Foundation supports community-based organizations working to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Since 2003, it has funded more than 300 projects in 15 sub-Saharan African countries. To learn more, visit www.stephenlewisfoundation.org.

 

 

 

 

  

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY #1
WHO:        Renowned Canadian hip-hop artist k-os
WHAT:      k-os will revisit his youth, returning to his first job – selling toys at The Bay.
WHEN:     Monday, Oct 19 at 10:30 a.m.
WHERE:  The Bay Queen Street (Eaton Centre), 5th Floor – Toy Department, 176 Yonge St.

*Stephen Lewis will be available for interviews on site from 10:30 – 11:00 a.m.

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY #2
WHO:      Actors Natalie Brown (Sophie) and Amy Lalonde (Wild Roses)
WHAT:    Natalie and Amy will host a bake sale during the lunch hour rush at Union Station (with proceeds going to SLF) featuring fresh cookies made from the very honey that they harvested during their dare from The Fairmont Royal York rooftop bee hive.  Both ladies have already faced their fear of bees and their fear of baking and are now sharing the fruits of their labour with the public.
WHEN:    Monday, Oct 19 at 12:00 p.m.
WHERE:  Union Station, Main Entrance, 65 Front Street West, Across from The Fairmont Royal York Hotel

*Stephen Lewis will be available for interviews on site from 12:00 – 12:30 p.m.

WHY:   To raise funds and awareness in support of A Dare to Remember and encourage Canadians to register a dare of their own, sponsor someone’s dare, or dare someone else during Dare Week, Oct 17-25.  Proceeds from A Dare to Remember will be used by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to support African community-based organizations that are pioneering creative approaches to change the course of the AIDS pandemic.

ABOUT:   The Stephen Lewis Foundation funds community-based organizations that provide care and support to women, children, grandmothers and organizations of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Since 2003, it has funded more than 300 projects in 15 sub-Saharan African countries.
For more information about A Dare to Remember, or to take on a dare yourself, please visit: www.adaretoremember.com

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For media inquiries, please contact:
 
James Loftus
DDB Public Relations
(416) 963-4538
james.loftus@can.ddbpr.com

Jenn Perras
DDB Public Relations
(416) 972-5869
jenn.perras@can.ddbpr.com
 

Such schoolyard taunts of double dares and triple dog dares are all for a good cause, supporting A Dare to Remember, a nationwide challenge raising money for HIV/AIDS in Africa through the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

"By putting myself in Rider gear, I'm probably going to receive a fair bit of heckling," said Fettes, a Regina-native. "I might make more money busking in Stampeders gear, but I have Rider pride and I can't really swallow it ."

A Dare to Remember rests on the thought that all across Africa, ordinary people are doing extraordinary things in the face of the AIDS pandemic. Canadians can show their support by taking on a challenge and doing something they never thought possible.

Fettes and Bernice Jacobs, an 18-year-old South African from Cape Town, are volunteering on the University of Calgary campus at CJSW for three months as part of the Canada World Youth Exchange between Calgary and Athlone, South Africa.

The two, along with their team of 16 other volunteers, are acting as community mobilizers for A Dare to Remember and aiming to help Calgarians come up with at least 50 dares.

"There's a lot of goodwill in the world towards helping others, but I don't think we always know how to go about it," said Fettes, noting the challenge offers many simple ways to get involved and make a difference.

"You choose your commitment level," she said, adding people can dare others, take up their own dares and set fundraising goals, or support people doing dares by sponsoring them.

Dares are encouraged to be declared during the week of Oct. 17–25 and committed to being completed by World AIDS Day, Dec. 1.

"[The campaign] is not only raising money, it's getting people to do something they've never done before and it's raising awareness for an important issue," said Fettes.

"The challenge is a good idea to raise awareness and get people involved," said Jacobs, who's in the midst of accepting her own dare. So far she has been dared to go on air at CJSW and to learn to ride a bike.

"Students can do anything that's fun and inspiring and resonates with their peers and campus," says Micol Zarb, director of communications for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Zarb pointed to other campuses across Canada where professors are daring students, students are daring deans and deans are daring other deans. Participating in team dares, public group events and personal dares are all ways university students can get involved.

Zarb says support, in any amount, means a lot.

"You can't imagine how far even a small amount of money goes for people in Africa," she said. "It lifts families of out poverty and gives hope and dignity to people's lives."

All money raised for the dares will go straight to Africa and directly in to the hands of grass-root organizations in 15 countries hardest hit by AIDS, said Zarb.

Existing dares can be viewed at the campaign's website and range from the healthy (running a marathon), to the kind (50 random acts of kindness in a week). There are also funny dares (performing Michael Jackson's Thriller dance) and bold dares (bungee jumping and sky diving).

Canadian Celebrities are getting in on the action, including New Democratic Leader Jack Layton and musician k-os.

Olympic gold medalist and Calgary fire fighter Duff Gibson has a fundraising goal of $7,500 for his dare. He plans to carry a 20-litre jug of water about 12 kilometres, or three hours, from Canada Olympic Park to his son's school in northwest Calgary, emulating the plight of African women who walk several hours each day for water.

Gibson is inviting Calgarians to sponsor his dare, or with a minimum donation of $20 people can join him on his walk October 22.

Stephen Lewis, of the foundation, will also be taking on a dare and is calling on Canadians to submit ideas.

Fettes and Jacobs are hoping to mobilize the U of C community and are encouraging interested students, campus groups and community members to check out the campaign's website at adaretoremember.com. Donations in support of various dares can also be made on the website.

Interested participants can also email Fettes at kobewkae@hotmail.com with ideas or questions about getting the U of C campus involved.

"There's huge potential here on campus," said Fettes.

As for her own dare to busk outside a Stampeders game, Fettes thinks she can handle any heckling and is more concerned about the weather.

"Hopefully it's not super cold," said Fettes of the day she'll be busking with her violin, "that can be pretty hard on the fingers."

 

Searle and Tyrell are best-known for their 25-year-old label Hoax Couture, boutiques in Yorkville (now closed) and Queen West (still going strong), and more recently a custom-creations studio at the Queen Street store. They’re also the duo providing the grand finale of LG Fashion Week with Dare to Wear Love, an ambitious runway show and party supporting the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Dare to Remember Week, which benefits Africa-based projects addressing AIDS.

The director of programmes for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Aissatou Diajhate, explained the awareness campaign as recognizing the importance “to every day not forget other citizens in this global village.” Since its inception in 2003, the Stephen Lewis Foundation has funded over 300 projects in 15 different African countries. Projects are chosen by the African communities; the Stephen Lewis Foundation provides the resources to ensure they’re implemented. Although AIDS has long been a favourite cause of the fashion industry, this particular pairing of charity and clothes has a distinctly Canadian, and distinctly practical, appeal.

In addition to the broad, arduous activism of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Hoax’s Chris Tyrell was mostly impressed by the foundation’s “Grandmother Campaign,” which involves groups of grandmothers across Canada supporting their African counterparts who are so often the caregivers for children orphaned by AIDS. “It really touched me,” he said, explaining that he was an orphan raised by his grandmother.

The Hoax team selected 25 designers, gave them fabric sourced directly from Africa, and told them to pick their models. Designers and lines include a true constellation of Canadian fashion’s bright lights, including Lida Baday, Brian Bailey, Bustle, Greta Constantine, Comrags, Jeremy Laing, Jason Meyers, Peach Berserk and Pink Tartan.

“It’s Western dress in African fabric,” explained Tyrell about the looks to be shown at Dare to Wear Love. Celebrity models will be strolling the catwalk (including Stacey McKenzie from Canada’s Next Top Model, musician Jully Black and MTV host Jessi Cruickshank) and all-told, the group hopes to raise $100,000 from the event, which goes directly to the foundation’s projects. Of course, the Hoax team emphasizes that raising awareness is the bottom line. The designers and the foundation are currently in talks about more fashion shows, auctioning off the looks from the show, and partnering with retail stores. Still, the event itself is “primarily a fun, glamorous party,” Searle says.

515 Queen W, 3rd floor. By appointment only. 416-597-8924. www.daretowearlove.com; www.hoaxcouture.com; www.adaretoremember.com

Dozens have volunteered to take the plunge into a dangerous environment, such as a stand up comedy club, or an apiary, and Toronto rapper K-Os will even return to his old job at the toy department in The Bay, but the big news on campus is that second-year U of T student Daniel Gray will brave the unseasonable cold to play catchy, thick-layered pop music on street corners around the city.

The Dare to Remember Campaign is an organized event started by Stephen Lewis to raise money for Lewis’s foundation to fight HIV/AIDS. It has provided Gray with an opportunity to do a social good in a challenging setting.

“I heard [Lewis] speak at the Massey Hall lecture,” says Gray who has been supporting Lewis’s organization since high school. “He’s so motivating. When he speaks, you want to do something so badly. I figured if I could incorporate my music with the experience, all the better.”

It’s hard to envision Gray realizing the complex pop songs of his first EP, A Future’s Past, as a one-man acoustic band.

“Given that my arrangements are so dense, it’s hard to make an appealing sound out of myself solo. I’m going to be busking with the loop pedal and a battery-powered guitar amp,” notes Gray.

On the EP, Gray shows off a remarkable knack for dense, yet buoyant guitar and piano pop, holding elements of ’60s sunshine and modern indie in equal regard. While addictive melodies are present throughout, what is most striking is the complexity of his composition. The result is obviously born of a very particular songwriter.

“Not that I’m closed to suggestion, but whenever I write a song, I hear it in my head on a grander scale with arrangement and instrumentation,” says Gray. “I dig intense layering, stuff like Sufjan Stevens, these types of really elaborate arrangements. That’s something I love in [pop music], layering until you hit a huge crescendo.”

Realizing his specific vision was important to him, but Gray’s father, Juno-winning engineer Gary Gray helped him with production, making the task much easier.

“He’s more in the classical world now, but in the ’70s and the ’80s he did quite a few pop records and folk stuff. He did a lot of the early Bruce Cockburn stuff and Gordon Lightfoot.”

In Daniel’s estimate, the final product is the outcome of their collective sensibilities.

“He’s so much of a perfectionist and I prefer rough edges, so it’s kind of an interesting contrast. We come from different styles, but we try to combine them into something we can both agree on. He has good suggestions, like ‘this would sound really good doubled,’ in terms of production values.”

The songs, however, are distinctly Daniel’s, given that he sings and plays guitar, drum, organ, harmonica, samplers, and everything else on the record. While his proficiency comes from an entire life spent around music—his mother is a professional violinist—Daniel started writing songs a few years ago, and only recently began considering the possibility of taking music more seriously.

“When I was younger, music to me was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, or these huge bands who make millions of dollars. I was being realistic about it. I never expected that I could do anything like that.”

However, having seen the unlikely success of more off-kilter pop musicians over the last few years has provided hope of a future career. Take Grizzly Bear, for example.

“They write psychedelic folk songs and somehow they became this huge band...I’ve noticed in the last year or so, ‘indie’ music has started to reach a new fan base, unlike in the ’90s or the ’80s. There’s a smaller gap between the indie labels and the majors now. [Many] people are making a living, and touring, and having a life with it. They’re not celebrities, and they’re not making millions of dollars, they’re making a modest living. But since I’ve been exposed to that kind of thing, I’ve made records of my own and become more ambitious in what I can do with that.”

For Gray, his expectations remain modest, even though his ambitions are high.

“If I can take it to a level where I can tour as much as I can and make a living off of it, then I think I probably would. It would be hard [...] but people are discovering music they normally wouldn’t because it’s so easy to share.”

Daniel Gray’s EP, A Future’s Past, is available as a free digital download at danielgraymusic.bandcamp.com. He will be busking outside of stations along the Spadina subway line this week. He is also playing a show on Nov. 7 at the Concord Café.
 

Besides making it to the shore, Kristin Roe wants to raise $100,000 which she will donate to the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association.

Roe’s swim is part of a nationwide fundraising challenge, A Dare to Remember, launched by the foundation this fall.

"We can all do something to help communities fight AIDS in Africa," Roe said in a release.

"I believe this is the most exciting initiative Nova Scotians have seen in a long time and I encourage everyone to get involved in some way."

The program challenges people to take on personal dares — such as host a dinner or run five kilometres — and ask people to sponsor them. Most dares will be completed during Dare Week, which runs Oct. 17 to 25.

Next summer’s endurance swim will be the second she has undertaken to benefit Africans.

Last summer, she completed a double crossing of the Northumberland Strait and raised $80,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Farmers Helping Farmers.

Roe has already raised $600 toward her most recent charity goal by wearing her swim cap to work at the IWK Health Centre for one day earlier this month.

Anyone interested in taking on his or her own dare or sponsoring Roe can check out the challenge at www.adaretoremember.com.

Duff Gibson has raced to burning buildings and slid headfirst down an icy track.

But one night he had to ask himself: "Am I as tough as a 15-year-old girl?"

It seemed a perfectly relevant question at the time. There was Gibson, in front of his television, an experienced firefighter and, at 39, the oldest gold medalist in the history of the Winter Olympics. And there she was, an on-screen waif of a teen whose daily existence depended on a two-hour walk to a neighbouring well where she would fill up a large plastic container of water, then carry it back to her home on her head.

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Every day produced the same ritual. Walk, fill and carry, all of it under a punishing African sun.

So after watching the girl's plight played out on a TV infomercial, Gibson, the 2006 Olympic skeleton champion, wondered, "Could I do that?" And that's how it began, Duff Gibson's Dare to Remember, one man sloshing along the streets and pathways of Calgary with a 20-litre container of water on his head.

Mind you, Gibson is planning on having some company Oct. 22 when he walks a watered-down 12.5 kilometres, from Canada Olympic Park to his son's elementary school, Alexander Ferguson, in Northwest Calgary, all for charity. Gibson is out to raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and its fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. It's a cause near and dear to Gibson's heart.

He and his wife, Gen, unable to have kids of their own, adopted two boys from Ethiopia last year.

"I mentioned it to my crew at the airport," Gibson said of his venture. "Two of the guys are going to do it, and two friends of mine. Some people will do the walk and carry a small symbolic amount of water. The kids will do that. Anyone can come with us."

Gedion Gibson, 5, and his 2½-year-old brother, Taye, had been living in a foster home after their parents decided they could no longer care for them in the mud hut that housed six people and a cow. While dealing with the Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children, Gibson and his wife were asked if they were interested in adopting brothers. That struck a chord within Gibson, whose family story was played out to Canadians when he won his gold medal at the Turin Olympics.

Gibson's father Andy, a national judo champion, had been selected to Canada's 1968 Olympic team, only to see the sport dropped from the summer program. In December of 2005, as he lay dying of cancer, Andy spoke to his son about the value of athletics, about winning and losing and what mattered most. After capturing the gold medal, Duff Gibson explained how he'd honoured his father with a pledge: "If I won the race today, I would try to be as gracious a winner as I could be. And if I wasn't to win today, I would try to be as gracious a loser as I could be. And that's what I dedicate to my dad."

The idea of having his own family and passing on his dad's teachings was pivotal to Gibson, who was also influenced by an aunt and an uncle who adopted a son from Russia. Gibson and his wife contacted the Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children and settled on Africa "because we knew the children had been with a family and were given up out of love," Gen Gibson said. That began a two-year process filled with criminal checks, financial checks, home assessments and interviews. When the Gibsons were asked if they were interested in adopting brothers, they agreed and flew to Africa in April of 2008 to see their sons.

"We met the mom and it was such a heartbreaking scenario," Gibson said. "She did what was best for the boys but it was hard. Gedion was 3½ when we met him. He does remember being back in Ethiopia. Taye, when he hears his brother talking about it, says he remembers being in the Safeway in Ethiopia. Their parents are still alive. We send photos and pictures to the orphanage and that's sent on to the parents."

To make a connection with Ethiopia and its people, Duff and Gen staged a personal fundraising and collected $15,000 from family and friends.

Before they left for home, the Gibsons spent all they had on food, clothing, medical and school supplies. "We felt it was important to make some connection," Gen said.

Knowing what his sons had been through, and driven to make a meaningful statement through his Dare, Gibson put it all together: He'd do something for his sons' homeland by mimicking the girl he'd seen on TV with a walk beginning at Canada Olympic Park, the place where his Olympic career originated.

"I wanted an Olympic tie-in," said Gibson, who will make the roughly three-hour walk in his quest for $7,500. "The Olympics have been a big part of my life."

They still are. For this season, the ever-active Gibson will serve as a head coach working closely with the Continental Cup team. That means he'll be spending time on the North American circuit leading up to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. He'll do that while juggling shifts at Calgary's No. 27 firehall, helping raise his two sons and training for his coming challenge by walking around his neighbourhood with a container of water on his head.

"The idea is you're supposed to come up with your own Dare," Gibson explained. "In the fire department, we have a combat challenge, where you drag a dummy [as if dragging a body from a fire or accident site].

"When I saw that young girl in Africa carrying water on her head, I wondered if I could do that, so we thought, let's see if us being big, strong firefighter-types could do what this tiny 15-year-old girl was doing."

So how does it feel shouldering all that neck-crunching weight?

"I've done a six-kilometre test walk to convince myself I could do it," said Gibson, who uses a belt looped around his body and the container to ensure he doesn't lose his grip. "It's extremely uncomfortable but it's a chance to walk in someone else's shoes."

For family and others and, most important, for those unfortunate souls in Africa, where being tough is enough to make an Olympic champion wince.



 

The Stephen Lewis Foundation wants to step up its support of grassroots AIDS projects in sub-Saharan Africa and has launched a five-year campaign to raise $100 million.

To help reach that target, it is asking Canadians to raise pledge money by challenging themselves or a friend to a dare, beginning Oct. 17. The organization would like all dares done by Dec. 1 – World AIDS Day.

"We came to realize that if we turn it up a notch, we could turn the tide of AIDS in Africa," said Stephen Lewis, AIDS activist and former politician and diplomat, in an interview with the Star.

The idea behind the Dare to Remember campaign, said Lewis, is to have people take on a dare that is special or significant to them, and that mirrors the extraordinary everyday efforts that countless Africans must make to deal with AIDS.

Hundreds of Canadians, famous and not so famous, have signed up. Federal NDP leader Jack Layton will be busking in his Toronto-Danforth riding on Oct. 24.

Here's what four daredevils did:

THE BEEKEEPERS

Names: Natalie Brown and Amy Lalonde, actors and good friends (right)

Dare: To overcome their fear of bees – in Lalonde's case, driven by an allergy – by harvesting honey on the roof of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. They now plan to bake honey-inspired creations to stage a sidewalk sale in front of the hotel, hopefully on Oct. 19.

Goal: $3,000 to $4,000 as a team.

Reason for dare: The Lewis Foundation "is well-respected" and "no doubt in my mind that the money raised will go to grassroots needs," says Lalonde. That may mean school fees for 50 children in Uganda or 125 goats for a village, she says.

Adds Brown: "I was touched by those who have to deal not only with looking after their (AIDS-orphaned) grandchildren but also talking to them about safe sex practices ...

Stephen Lewis "has made our nation proud and it's an honour to do him proud."

THE TOY SALESMAN

Name: K-os, hip-hop artist

Dare: To work at the Bay's toy department in downtown Toronto on Oct. 19

Goal: $3,000 (but hopes to raise more)

Reason for dare: K-os sold toys at the Bay in the Oshawa Centre after high school, before quitting to pursue a career in music. When he heard about the Dare to Remember campaign, he thought it would be cool to go back and do his old job again.

He likes the idea of letting people choose their way to help out. "David Suzuki was the first guy to tap me on the shoulder and say you can use your celebrity to effect change ... You can do just simple things by using who you are to help people."

THE OUTDOORSMAN

Name: Grant Johnstone, a Brampton outdoor education teacher

Dare: To portage a canoe five kilometres through downtown Toronto

Goal: $500

Reason for doing the dare: He used to walk downtown with a huge hiking backpack while commuting to classes here and got funny looks.

That made him wonder what people would say if he were to lug a canoe through the streets, a feat he accomplished Thursday.

One of the admirable things about the Stephen Lewis Foundation is that "they have a really good grassroots initiative," says Johnstone, whose wife does fundraising for the foundation.

"With these kind of initiatives, you can see what is being accomplished and you can make a difference in somebody's life."

THE CLIMBER

Name: Esther Stewart, 9, of Ottawa

Dare: To symbolically walk to the top of the CN Tower by climbing 1,776 steps in Ottawa by the third week in October.

If she completes her goal on time, her aunt has promised to take her up the CN Tower for real that same week.

Goal: $1,776 or $1 for each step.

Reason for dare: "I'm doing it for the disease AIDS. I'm fundraising and I like to do that. It has been my dream to go up the CN Tower. I'm really excited."

For information on the Dare To Remember campaign, go to www.stephenlewisfoundation.org. To register a dare, go to www.adaretoremember.com.

It will be held at Tweedsmuir Presbyterian Church, 6 John St. (at Broadway) in Orangeville, on Saturday, Oct. 17 from 6 to 9 p.m.

African music, a film from the Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF), and an African marketplace will complete the experience. The marketplace features beads, brooches, Kazuri jewelry handmade in Kenya and the unique Orangeville Go Go Grannies aprons, featuring original artwork.

The Go Go Grannies have, for the past three years, hosted a variety of fundraising events, which have resulted in thousands of dollars being raised and sent to SLF projects in various African countries.

The continent has been suffering markedly in recent years from the AIDS pandemic, and grandmothers whose own adult children have died, are now raising their grandchildren, often in circumstances of dire poverty.

Grandmothers (and other concerned individuals) all across Canada have been getting involved in helping their ‘sisters’ across the ocean.

Tickets for the African Dinner are available from BookLore in Orangeville and only by advance purchase (deadline Oct. 16). Cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children 12 and younger.
 

Lisbie is a member of Hamilton’s Grandmothers of Steel, the local chapter of  the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign that supports the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s work in assisting families in Africa whose lives have been ravaged by AIDS. With a generation cut down by the deadly virus, many African women are left to raise their children’s children. Grandmothers on this side of the globe have risen to the crisis, drumming up support to provide not only funds, but resources such as music therapy for traumatized children and counselling for the women to deal with their anger and frustration with their situation.

Last year, reporter Dianne and I took up the Grandmothers’ challenge by participating in a community Scrabble tournament. This year,  keeping in mind the extraordinary lengths ordinary African women are being called on to perform every day to ensure the survival of their families, ordinary Canadians are being asked to perform one extraordinary feat during the week of October 17-25.

After registering online so that pledges can be made, participants must fulfill their ‘dare,’ which can range from wearing pink longjohns to work for the week to wearing a sandwich board in public to promote the campaign. Nothing dangerous or immoral, just good, clean fun for a good cause.

As we pondered what activity might put us far enough outside our comfort zones to make the dare worthwhile, I confessed that I’ve never been on an airplane – ever. Just never got around to it. Until now.

After a quick call to Spectrum Airways, which is run out of the Burlington Air Park on Bell School Line, to enquire whether a flight for a good cause was a possibility, I got a call from owner Paul Kovachik, who hooked me up right away. Soon, pilot Bill and I decided that Thursday, October 22 would be the big day.

Now, I wouldn’t be totally honest if I said I wasn’t a little nervous – I am. But I’m excited, too. And I’m eagerly anticipating the view of Flamborough from above. I can’t wait.

Of course, my exploits will be documented in an upcoming issue of the Review. In the meantime, I’ll issue a dare of my own: check out www.adaretoremember.com to make a pledge. Or, better yet, register a dare of your own.

All support goes directly to African grandmothers, children and women faced with turning the tide of AIDS in their communities.
Now that’s extraordinary.
 

K-OS will return to the toy department of The Bay's Queen Street store in Toronto, where he worked during his youth to do one more shift there for a good cause.

The Toronto rapper will work there as part of the A Dare To Remember project that's been started by the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The project encourages Canadians to do something special and raise money for AIDS research in Africa while doing it.

"My dare will take me back to my youth," he says. "I like the fact that people can use their imagination and choose a dare that is relevant to them and then collect pledges to help raise funds for African communities.

"I hope that my dare inspires others to take action, as I am a firm believer that when united for a single cause we can all make a difference."

K-OS aims to raise $3,000 while completing his dare, and you can help him reach that goal here.

More information about the A Dare To Remember campaign is available here.

Simply put, Canadians can pledge to do wacky things — or dare their friends  — to support communities in Africa battling AIDS.

Mr. Meslin dared himself to grow the handle:

"I had this strange feeling that I have a lot of friends who would thoroughly enjoy seeing me sport a handlebar mustache for an entire week, " he said today. "Friends always enjoy having a laugh at the expense of their colleagues."

The mustache will be in full effect during a busy week of public appearances for Mr. Meslin, including two public forums and three of Mr. Meslin's on-stage performances with the Hidden Cameras across southern Ontario.

The challenge has brought out some of the leftiest of the left. Jack Layton, already mustachioed, is promising to busk at the corner of Danforth and Logan if his supporters donate $3,000. Meanwhile, average folks are also stepping up: Frances Bauer of London, Ont., has pledged to shear her Labradoodle her very own self to raise $2,160, while Calgary's Gary Dobko will wear a wetsuit and inflatable arm bands every day or a whole week.

We're all for the left acting even weirder than usual. So pledge away.

 

He's doing it as part of the Toronto-based Stephen Lewis Foundation's A Dare to Remember fundraising campaign that runs Oct. 17 to 25.

The unique initiative has a simple premise, as outlined on the website www.adaretoremember.com: All across Africa, ordinary people are doing extraordinary things in the face of the AIDS pandemic. Dare to stand in solidarity with them.

Entertainment and sports personalities like Gibson, along with ordinary Canadians, are coming forward with their own fundraising "dares." For instance rap star k-os is heading back for a shift at the major department store that gave him his first job.

Canadians are being urged to either come up with their own idea or support someone else's.

For Gibson, he didn't have to look too far for inspiration as his two boys were adopted at the ages of two and four from Ethiopia last year.

As he relates on his webpage, "In Africa, something that we take for granted, like having easy access to clean drinking water, can be a great challenge. Grandmothers, mothers and even young children travel great distances each day for water that is often contaminated. The containers, when full, can weigh over 20 kilograms, but carrying them on their heads or backs is the only way of providing water for their families...

"As an Olympian and Calgary firefighter, I would like to experience this extraordinary effort for a day - a reality my sons have lived during their early years in Ethiopia."

After arriving back from Turin with his gold medal in 2006, Gibson, reached by phone at the Calgary fire station where he works, said he lived in Scarborough with his family from "Grade 4 until I left for university."

He attended Bridlewood Junior Public School, J B Tyrrell Senior Public School and Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute.

His parents, Andy and Carole Gibson, are also both former teachers at Macdonald CI.

Gibson will be joined on his last kilometre by his son's schoolmates, who will all be carrying modified water containers.

He's already raised more than $2,000 and has his sights set on more than $7,000.

Although he's "challenging" Calgarians to support him, he'll no doubt get some support from his friend back in Scarborough.

Visit www.stephenlewisfoundation.org and click on The Dare to Remember for info on this unique campaign.

To log on to Gibson's page or any other participant's page, click on the link "to find or sponsor someone."

Harper has already auditioned for his role and seems a shoo-in for the part.

He wowed a swank gala Saturday at the National Arts Centre, tickling the ivories of a Steinway grand piano, belting out a Beatles tune, accompanied by world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Now Layton is getting into the act - albeit at a somewhat more down-scale venue.

The NDP leader will be strumming his guitar on a Toronto street corner later this month, as part of a fundraising drive for the Stephen Lewis Foundation's campaign to end AIDS in Africa.

He's promising to have guest appearances by some Juno-award winning Canadian artists - though he's unlikely to have anyone of Ma's international stature.

Layton admits he's a bit envious of Harper.

"I just thought it was grand fun," he said of Harper's gala performance.

"On a grand piano. I was jealous. That's probably one of the best pianos around in Ottawa," Layton said.

Layton admired Harper's courage in displaying his amateur musical talent in front of a discerning audience. He knows what it's like, having performed himself a few years ago at a press gallery dinner - one of the toughest crowds around.

"It is a bit nerve-wracking."

On that occasion, Layton was accompanied by Mike Ford of Moxy Fruvous fame.

"(Harper) had his Yo-Yo Ma, I had my Moxy Fruvous," he quipped.

But while Layton is willing to risk critical reviews repeatedly, Harper indicated that his debut Saturday was likely his swan song as well.

"You all know Saturday night was my wife's idea. Now her advice now is quit while you're ahead," Harper said Monday.

Neither Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff nor Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe seemed inclined to join the chorus.

"I don't want to discuss his musical talent," Duceppe groused when asked about Harper's performance.

"I mean, if he wants to dance next time, let him dance."

As for his own musical talents, Duceppe said: "I'm in politics. I'm not a singer."

Ignatieff said Harper's singing "is not all that much better than mine" and immediately trashed the prime minister's record on funding for the arts.

"It's nice to see the prime minister having fun, but this is the same guy who's been cutting funding for the arts, cutting funding for culture," he told a Toronto radio station.

"(Harper) said last year that artists were a bunch of snobs who liked going to fancy galas. And he showed up at a fancy gala himself last night."

A spokesperson later said Ignatieff, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction, will have a performance of his own later this month in Toronto, although not a musical one.

"He reads. Next performance at the International Festival of Authors event," said Jill Fairbrother.

Perhaps Duceppe and Ignatieff might lighten up if Parliament Hill was alive with the sound of music, suggested Layton.

"You know, a little harmony every now and again is a good thing," he said.

"I've always believed that the more singing that goes on, the better off we're likely to be."

The foundation is challenging Canadians to do something extraordinary between Oct. 17 and 26 to give recognition to those working on the front lines of AIDS support in Africa, and to have their friends, family and coworkers sponsor them. It’s a sub-campaign called A Dare to Remember. The idea is to be as resourceful as the Africans the campaign is supporting.

Brampton’s Grant Johnstone is participating in the event, will borrow a large canoe, cover it in Stephen Lewis Foundation advertisements and parade it through 5 kilometres of Toronto’s busy downtown core. He said he hopes to raise some eyebrows and a bit of cash in the process.

“I have set a personal fundraising goal of $500,” he said on his personal fundraising homepage (found on www.stephenlewisfoundation.org). “The money we raise will go directly to African grandmothers, children, and women— ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things to turn the tide of AIDS in Africa.”

Lewis, 71, an eloquent global AIDS activist, former politician and diplomat, has just returned from a month in sub-Saharan Africa. He visited many of the foundation's projects and talked to people in health clinics, farm fields and sewing circles.

"I was quite taken aback by the progress that is being made on the ground," he said. "Grandmothers (raising AIDS orphans) are feeling more secure. Kids are going to school and getting hot meals. Microprojects are working. It was exhilarating to see," he said.

In fact, things are going so well that the foundation has decided to shelve its original slogan: "Easing the Pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa."

Tomorrow, it will adopt an ambitious new one: "Turning the Tide of AIDS."

That marks the beginning of a five-year campaign designed to raise $100 million, which would allow the foundation to support 1 million orphans (five times the current number), expand its network of 300 projects and become a real force for change in Africa.

Lewis applauds the "big players" – the Clinton Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – for their work in Africa. He ardently hopes their efforts will lead to a vaccine or microbicide that will prevent the disease and protect the uninfected.

But he thinks the healing has to take place now. The foundation works at the grassroots level, strengthening communities torn apart by the pandemic, helping families cope and survivors become leaders.

"It's astonishing to see how a few thousand dollars can change lives," Lewis said. "Women who were sexually assaulted (and infected) are now recovering in safety, tending garden plots, sewing clothes and gaining the self-confidence to speak out."

He never dreamed the foundation, conceived at his daughter Ilana's kitchen table six years ago, would grow as rapidly as it has or develop such a strong donor base.

"I thought maybe we'd raise $250,000 a year."

Last year, $10.8 million rolled in – most of it in small donations.

To reflect its conviction that AIDS can be beaten, the foundation is challenging its supporters to be as resourceful as the Africans they're helping.

It is asking Canadians to do something extraordinary between Oct. 17 and 26 to salute those working on the front lines – and get all their friends, relatives, neighbours and associates to sponsor them.

Duff Gibson of Calgary plans to carry a 20-litre of jug of water on a three-hour journey, as many African women do daily. A group of Toronto grandmothers plans to organize 1,000 fundraising dinners. Grant Johnstone of Brampton plans to borrow a large canoe, plaster it with Stephen Lewis Foundation posters, then parade it through downtown Toronto. Nine-year-old Esther Stewart of Ottawa plans to climb 1,776 stairs (the equivalent of reaching the top of the CN Tower).

Those are just a few of the pledges the foundation has received.

To Lewis, they capture the spirit of what he saw this summer. "In Africa, the AIDS pandemic forces ordinary people to defy unimaginable odds every single day to keep families together, feed and educate children and comfort those reeling from grief."

The lilt is back in his voice. He's seen the first buds of renewal.

The local branch of the grassroots organization, which works under the sponsorship of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, held its first meeting May 26.

The organization supports grandmothers in Africa who have been left to take care of their grandchildren after their children died in the AIDS epidemic.

Ninety per cent of the funds raised go directly to the cause.

Last week, the Muskoka Lakes group brainstormed fundraising ideas for the year.

The luncheon on Oct. 14 at 12 p.m. at St. Thomas Anglican Church on Manitoba Street in Bracebridge will be the first fundraiser, said Susan Ware who started the chapter with Barbara Power.

The meal will include a variety of African dishes selected by the group who will prepare the lunch.

The soup will be vegetable with coconut; there will be a chicken with lentils dish, Ethiopian collard greens, a plantain and green banana dish, Tanzanian vegetable rice and fresh pineapple for dessert. There will also be Ethiopian coffee and Rooibos tea (South African red leaf tea).

A gift basket of African-related items including music, a cookbook, candle and tea will be raffled off at the event. Power and Ware also hope to have African drumming at the luncheon.

Tickets are $15 a person, with only 40 tickets available.

Currently, there are 15 members of the Muskoka Lakes chapter of Grandmothers to Grandmothers who plan to meet monthly in Bracebridge. New members are welcome.

Other fundraising ideas for the year include a food/bake sale at a Christmas bazaar, scrabble tournaments, and a spring Granny walk relay around Lake Muskoka.

Power said the group is exploring the idea of a foundation-suggested fundraiser called Beds without Breakfast. This idea would involve grandmothers opening their homes to other grandmothers for a small fee, like a bed and breakfast.

The next meeting of the Muskoka Lakes chapter of Grandmothers to Grandmothers is Oct. 7 at 2 p.m. at the Women’s Resource Centre in Bracebridge.

Tickets for the African luncheon on Oct. 14 are $15 per person.

Those interested in reserving tickets for the upcoming luncheon should call Barbara Power at 645-5294. Power can also answer questions for those interested in joining the group.

You can make a donation to this event here

The diplomat and politician's titular foundation is launching a new fundraising effort, and Lewis hopes 'A Dare to Remember' spurs Canadians to choose their own challenges to raise money for those hit hardest by HIV/AIDS.

"You can choose something yourself that you want to do as a dare, or friends can dare you to do something," says Lewis, a global health professor at McMaster University who's served as Canada's United Nations ambassador and as a UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Participants can sign up at www.adaretoremember.com, and act out their dares from Oct. 17-25. Some people are already profiled, like a woman who plans to bungee jump over Victoria Falls in Zambia and another who aims to give up her car for a week.

A number of Canadian celebrities are on board, like musician k-os, who plans to work a shift in the toy section of the department store that gave him his first job. Celebs including Canadian Idol judge Jake Gold and actors Natalie Brown and Ngozi Paul have yet to declare their dares, and others haven't been announced yet.

Politicians aren't exempt: NDP leader Jack Layton has agreed to try his hand as a street performer, Lewis says.

As for Lewis, he'll pick a dare based on suggestions from Canadians, which so far include singing the national anthem at a Toronto Blue Jays' game.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation supports community groups dealing with the effects of HIV/AIDS in Africa in areas including education, health care, counselling and child care. The foundation helps around 200,000 orphans in 15 countries, says Lewis, covering costs of schooling, food and other necessities. He hopes to raise the number to one million kids in the next five years, and raise $100 million in the process.

International AIDS funding is declining and tends to focus on important but big-ticket items, like drugs and major prevention campaigns, says Lewis. Community-based projects get less attention and the foundation wants to fill that need.

"At the grassroots, in communities, on the ground, you can really begin to turn the tide of the pandemic," he says.

Lewis recently spent a month in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, checking out foundation-funded projects, meeting with women's activist groups and learning about the threat of sexual violence in spreading the virus. He says he's hopeful over rising AIDS awareness and greater access to treatment, but disturbed by still-high death rates and rates of infection among young people.

"The virus is still outstripping our capacity to respond," he says, pointing to the "tremendous struggle on the ground" to deal with the issue.

"The legacy of orphans, the vulnerability of grandmothers strikes you forcefully, time and time again."

MATT GALLOWAY (CBL-FM): All of us at one time or another have issued a dare or been given a dare. Usually it’s for something pretty silly, just to prove how bold or not we’re actually willing to be. Now former diplomat Stephen Lewis is asking people to make theirs. Those completed will help raise money for grassroots project in Africa. To tell us more about this idea, we’re joined by Stephen Lewis. He is of course the Chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa. He just devotes much of his life to this cause, and he’s with me in studio. It’s good to see you. Thank you for coming in.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Yeah, it’s a pleasure.

MATT GALLOWAY: Where did this idea come from, to give dares, to take on dares, for a very good cause?

STEPHEN LEWIS: It came out of the staff of the Foundation itself in a moment of inspiration, I think, trying to focus the attention of Canadians on the continuing problems in Africa around the AIDS pandemic, but doing it in a way which would associate what’s happening here with what’s going on there, in this sense, that people in Africa are so resilient, they’re so courageous, they work so hard at keeping communities alive and going, and we wanted to fashion something in Canada that would be an acknowledgement amongst us for what they are doing there, and so the idea of a challenge, a dare, emerged, and I think it’s a rather novel idea, because most dares, like everything from marathons to Run for the Cure, they’re… they’re collective in their activities, and they’re all indispensable, but in this case it’s individual dares, what you, Matt, would dare to do, what I, Stephen Lewis, would dare to do, set a financial target, get friends and acquaintances to support it and raise money for the grassroots of Africa.

MATT GALLOWAY: You have individuals who are part of this. You also have, quote, unquote, celebrities, I mean Jack Layton, k-os involved in this…

STEPHEN LEWIS: [LAUGHTER] Yes.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean what are they going to do?
STEPHEN LEWIS: Well, k-os is going to return to his childhood and sell toys at a department store [LAUGHTER]. He’s been dared to do that, and Jack Layton is going to busk on the Danforth [LAUGHTER] during the week when we focus on this, which is between August… October the 18th and October 25th. I think Jack Layton should be playing French horn in the Toronto Symphony [LAUGHTER], but he’s going to be part of his proletarian roots.

MATT GALLOWAY: You have essentially spent a lot of time daring leaders of nations to do this work as well, to invest in the people of Africa, to find a way to deal with the scourge of HIV/AIDS. You talked about focussing the minds of Canadians on this. How difficult is it to do that, knowing what we know and knowing how long you’ve been speaking about this? How difficult is it to get us to pay attention to what is a perennial problem?

STEPHEN LEWIS: May I say, Matt, that it’s a lot less difficult to get the public in Canada to focus on it than it is to get the government to focus on it.

MATT GALLOWAY: Hm.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Governments tend to be awkward, impervious, and they use the economic decline to stop giving the resources they have promised to give. The individual members of the public are quite different. The generosity of Canadians is amazing, and what we’re trying to do in the Foundation is to intensify our work, to ratchet it up another notch, to say, in effect, we can turn the tide on this AIDS pandemic if we can get the resources to flow to the community level, to the grassroots level, where people live and die, and instead of working just in individual communities or locales you change it to turn into a district, to a region, to a country, and you develop the momentum that gives hopes and makes it feel as though things can turn around.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is it that hope that cuts through that fatigue that people often have, because we just get overwhelmed with the negative; we get overwhelmed with how bad things are, and to a lot of people it seems almost that it’s an immovable object, that you can’t… doesn’t matter how many resources you put out or how much you try and push that object it’s not going to go anywhere, and that just overwhelms people’s sense of… their motivation to do something.

STEPHEN LEWIS: You’re not… you’re not mistaken about that, but then the struggle for social justice is always long, isn’t it, and whether it’s homelessness in an urban centre in a Western country or whether it’s disease, poverty, conflict, food security in a developing country in Africa, it’s the same long struggle, and the lovely thing about Canadians, as we’ve learned at the Foundation, is that they’re very generous and they understand and they have a kind of sense of being citizens of the world. It’s interesting how much that’s part of the Lester Pearson tradition, for example…

MATT GALLOWAY: Hm.

STEPHEN LEWIS: … that seems to suffuse Canadian interest. So our feeling was that if you have a dare and you excite them into an activity that then shows solidarity with Africa, you sustain the momentum we already have in Canada. You know, there are 50,000 individual Canadians who contribute to the Foundation, Matt. I’m astonished by that.

MATT GALLOWAY: And that’s, I mean, in part I guess how you avoided becoming sort of just about the dare and not about the result of the dare, that it’s not just fun and good times but there’s a real reason that you’re doing this dare, there’s a real… there are individuals who will benefit from your generosity.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Totally, because if it was merely the dare, why engage in it? There is an object in this, and it is to help an extraordinary population.

MATT GALLOWAY: You don’t need to be dared to do anything. I mean you do this on a daily basis, but…

STEPHEN LEWIS: Yeah…

MATT GALLOWAY: … have you been dared to do anything?
STEPHEN LEWIS: People have suggested to me that I should sing the national anthems [LAUGHTER] at Blue Jay games, but I’m waiting. We’ve invited people to suggest the dares I might engage in, and I’ll make sure they involve some form of self-immolation.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you get to pick… [LAUGHTER]

STEPHEN LEWIS: Oh no, I’ll (inaudible), my God. Nobody’s going to dictate to me.

MATT GALLOWAY: Good luck.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Thank you very much, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: Stephen Lewis, the Chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, also the former UN Special Envoy to AIDS in Africa and somebody who, as I said, work tirelessly to deal with HIV and AIDS in Africa. If you’re interested in learning more about his new fundraising initiative, if you’d like to suggest a dare for Stephen to get involved in, go to our website, cbc.ca/Toronto; we’ll post more information about the initiative after the program.
 

By Amy Fuller, The Canadian Press

You can lace up your running shoes, but you can also host a dinner party, yodel on the subway or carry a canoe through city streets to raise money to fight AIDS.

Whatever you choose, preposterous or not, it’s a dare.

That’s the message being sent to Canadians by a new fundraising initiative from an AIDS group started by Canada’s former United Nations ambassador Stephen Lewis, now a professor of global health at Hamilton’s McMaster University and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation, which supports hundreds of community-based organizations sustaining people affected by HIV/AIDS in 15 African countries, launched the Dare to Remember campaign Monday.

As recessionary cutbacks and fears about the economy threaten funding to Sub-Saharan communities hard hit by the virus, the campaign asks people to get beyond their comfort zones and do something personally meaningful to raise money.

Participants can set a fundraising goal and spread the word about what they plan to accomplish by creating a personal web page at www.adaretoremember.org.

The dares will be enacted during the week of Oct. 17, in celebration of the courage Africans touched by HIV/AIDS show daily.

Designers Chris Tyrell and Jim Searle of Hoax Couture have already signed up, as has k-os: the hip-hop artist plans to work a shift in the toy section of the major department store where he had his first job. Other celebrities will announce their dares over the coming weeks.

The foundation offers categories to get people thinking; among them, Dare to Be Bold, Dare to Be Funny and Dare to Be Healthy. People can collect pledges for completing a triathlon, wearing their clothes backward or going vegetarian.

Lewis has already received numerous ideas for his own dare, such as singing the national anthem at a Toronto Blue Jays game or conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He hasn’t yet made a choice, but one suggestion is out: that he stop biting his nails.

“Not a chance. That’s a psychosis. That’s not solveable,” he said with a laugh during an interview Sunday.

Turning serious, Lewis said there’s no question the amount of money available to fight the crisis has diminished over the last year. He called the situation “ominous, tremendously worrisome.”

While support for Lewis’s foundation has remained stable in the midst of the economic downturn, large amounts of money tend to be made available for grand projects rather than the small, grassroots efforts that make profound changes in peoples’ lives, he said.

Money toward the purchase of drugs, lab equipment, the quest for vaccines and public education activities are all vital, Lewis concedes, but community-based projects lack the degree of support they need.

“This is where the virus is being most effectively confronted,” he said.

That’s why the foundation changed its tagline this year, from “Easing the Pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa” to “Turning the Tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa,” and set a fundraising target of $100 million over the next five years. With that kind of money, Lewis is confident the impact of the virus could gradually diminish. The foundation could go from supporting some 200,000 orphans to supplying food, shelter, school fees, grief counselling, psychosocial support and other necessities to a million orphans.

“We actually think that it can be done,” he says.

This year’s Dare to Remember event could raise millions of dollars, Lewis hopes. Organizers don’t yet know how much to expect from the first campaign, but anticipate it will become an annual tradition.

At the G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, international leaders agreed to provide universal access to AIDS prevention and treatment for everyone who needed it by 2010. As that target approaches, only four million people receive treatment out of the eight or nine million people who need it, Lewis says.

“There’s a psychological factor involved as well. When the crisis is the greatest, that’s the moment to encourage people to contribute more,” he said.

Critics argue too much money goes toward AIDS as opposed to other health issues, but Lewis insists the pandemic is an exceptional issue that destroys whole generations and comparing AIDS to other global health needs is wrong.

Government stimulus packages in Europe, Asia and North America are verging on three trillion dollars, he says, while a few billion per year goes toward HIV/AIDS.

Lewis speaks as a recent witness to African troubles, having just returned from visiting community-based projects in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and the Congo. There, he observed a respectful, close relationship between foundation staff and community workers that left him exhilarated, particularly given that people dealing with AIDS often feel stigmatized.

Yet he also saw the consequences of sexual violence after political unrest in Kenya and horrific wars in the Congo. In the act of raping, the virus is frequently transmitted, Lewis says. The foundation supports the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a city in eastern Congo, where women who have been raped have their reproductive organs surgically repaired.

“There are aspects of the foundation’s work we didn’t anticipate but very much want to be a part of.”

Last year, the Stephen Lewis Foundation raised close to $12 million from some 50,000 donors.

Fundraising challenge looks to support grassroots projects in Africa

Amy Fuller
THE CANADIAN PRESS

You can lace up your running shoes, but you can also host a dinner party, yodel on the subway or carry a canoe through city streets to raise money to fight AIDS.

Whatever you choose, preposterous or not, it's a dare.

That's the message being sent to Canadians by a new fundraising initiative from an AIDS group started by Canada's former United Nations ambassador Stephen Lewis, now a professor of global health at Hamilton's McMaster University and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation, which supports hundreds of community-based organizations sustaining people affected by HIV/AIDS in 15 African countries, launched the Dare to Remember campaign Monday.

As recessionary cutbacks and fears about the economy threaten funding to Sub-Saharan communities hard hit by the virus, the campaign asks people to get beyond their comfort zones and do something personally meaningful to raise money.

Participants can set a fundraising goal and spread the word about what they plan to accomplish by creating a personal web page at www.adaretoremember.org.

The dares will be enacted during the week of Oct. 17, in celebration of the courage Africans touched by HIV/AIDS show daily.

Designers Chris Tyrell and Jim Searle of Hoax Couture have already signed up, as has k-os: the hip-hop artist plans to work a shift in the toy section of the major department store where he had his first job. Other celebrities will announce their dares over the coming weeks.

The foundation offers categories to get people thinking; among them, Dare to Be Bold, Dare to Be Funny and Dare to Be Healthy. People can collect pledges for completing a triathlon, wearing their clothes backward or going vegetarian.

Lewis has already received numerous ideas for his own dare, such as singing the national anthem at a Toronto Blue Jays game or conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He hasn't yet made a choice, but one suggestion is out: that he stop biting his nails.

"Not a chance. That's a psychosis. That's not solveable," he said with a laugh during an interview Sunday.

Turning serious, Lewis said there's no question the amount of money available to fight the crisis has diminished over the last year. He called the situation "ominous, tremendously worrisome."

While support for Lewis's foundation has remained stable in the midst of the economic downturn, large amounts of money tend to be made available for grand projects rather than the small, grassroots efforts that make profound changes in peoples' lives, he said.

Money toward the purchase of drugs, lab equipment, the quest for vaccines and public education activities are all vital, Lewis concedes, but community-based projects lack the degree of support they need.

"This is where the virus is being most effectively confronted," he said.

That's why the foundation changed its tagline this year, from "Easing the Pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa" to "Turning the Tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa," and set a fundraising target of $100 million over the next five years. With that kind of money, Lewis is confident the impact of the virus could gradually diminish. The foundation could go from supporting some 200,000 orphans to supplying food, shelter, school fees, grief counselling, psychosocial support and other necessities to a million orphans.

"We actually think that it can be done," he says.

This year's Dare to Remember event could raise millions of dollars, Lewis hopes. Organizers don't yet know how much to expect from the first campaign, but anticipate it will become an annual tradition.

At the G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, international leaders agreed to provide universal access to AIDS prevention and treatment for everyone who needed it by 2010. As that target approaches, only four million people receive treatment out of the eight or nine million people who need it, Lewis says.

"There's a psychological factor involved as well. When the crisis is the greatest, that's the moment to encourage people to contribute more," he said.

Critics argue too much money goes toward AIDS as opposed to other health issues, but Lewis insists the pandemic is an exceptional issue that destroys whole generations and comparing AIDS to other global health needs is wrong.

Government stimulus packages in Europe, Asia and North America are verging on three trillion dollars, he says, while a few billion per year goes toward HIV/AIDS.

Lewis speaks as a recent witness to African troubles, having just returned from visiting community-based projects in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and the Congo. There, he observed a respectful, close relationship between foundation staff and community workers that left him exhilarated, particularly given that people dealing with AIDS often feel stigmatized.

Yet he also saw the consequences of sexual violence after political unrest in Kenya and horrific wars in the Congo. In the act of raping, the virus is frequently transmitted, Lewis says. The foundation supports the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a city in eastern Congo, where women who have been raped have their reproductive organs surgically repaired.

"There are aspects of the foundation's work we didn't anticipate but very much want to be a part of."

Last year, the Stephen Lewis Foundation raised close to $12 million from some 50,000 donors.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation, which supports hundreds of community-based organizations sustaining people affected by HIV/AIDS in 15 African countries, launched the Dare to Remember campaign Monday.

As recessionary cutbacks and fears about the economy threaten funding to Sub-Saharan communities hard hit by the virus, the campaign asks people to get beyond their comfort zones and do something personally meaningful to raise money.

Participants can set a fundraising goal and spread the word about what they plan to accomplish by creating a personal web page at www.adaretoremember.org.

The dares will be enacted during the week of Oct. 17, in celebration of the courage Africans touched by HIV/AIDS show daily.

Designers Chris Tyrell and Jim Searle of Hoax Couture have already signed up, as has k-os: the hip-hop artist plans to work a shift in the toy section of the major department store where he had his first job. Other celebrities will announce their dares over the coming weeks.

The foundation offers categories to get people thinking; among them, Dare to Be Bold, Dare to Be Funny and Dare to Be Healthy. People can collect pledges for completing a triathlon, wearing their clothes backward or going vegetarian.

Lewis has already received numerous ideas for his own dare, such as singing the national anthem at a Toronto Blue Jays game or conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He hasn't yet made a choice, but one suggestion is out: that he stop biting his nails.

"Not a chance. That's a psychosis. That's not solveable," he said with a laugh during an interview Sunday.

Turning serious, Lewis said there's no question the amount of money available to fight the crisis has diminished over the last year. He called the situation "ominous, tremendously worrisome."

While support for Lewis's foundation has remained stable in the midst of the economic downturn, large amounts of money tend to be made available for grand projects rather than the small, grassroots efforts that make profound changes in peoples' lives, he said.

Money toward the purchase of drugs, lab equipment, the quest for vaccines and public education activities are all vital, Lewis concedes, but community-based projects lack the degree of support they need.

"This is where the virus is being most effectively confronted," he said.

That's why the foundation changed its tagline this year, from "Easing the Pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa" to "Turning the Tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa," and set a fundraising target of $100 million over the next five years. With that kind of money, Lewis is confident the impact of the virus could gradually diminish. The foundation could go from supporting some 200,000 orphans to supplying food, shelter, school fees, grief counselling, psychosocial support and other necessities to a million orphans.

"We actually think that it can be done," he says.

This year's Dare to Remember event could raise millions of dollars, Lewis hopes. Organizers don't yet know how much to expect from the first campaign, but anticipate it will become an annual tradition.

At the G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, international leaders agreed to provide universal access to AIDS prevention and treatment for everyone who needed it by 2010. As that target approaches, only four million people receive treatment out of the eight or nine million people who need it, Lewis says.

"There's a psychological factor involved as well. When the crisis is the greatest, that's the moment to encourage people to contribute more," he said.

Critics argue too much money goes toward AIDS as opposed to other health issues, but Lewis insists the pandemic is an exceptional issue that destroys whole generations and comparing AIDS to other global health needs is wrong.

Government stimulus packages in Europe, Asia and North America are verging on three trillion dollars, he says, while a few billion per year goes toward HIV/AIDS.

Lewis speaks as a recent witness to African troubles, having just returned from visiting community-based projects in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and the Congo. There, he observed a respectful, close relationship between foundation staff and community workers that left him exhilarated, particularly given that people dealing with AIDS often feel stigmatized.

Yet he also saw the consequences of sexual violence after political unrest in Kenya and horrific wars in the Congo. In the act of raping, the virus is frequently transmitted, Lewis says. The foundation supports the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a city in eastern Congo, where women who have been raped have their reproductive organs surgically repaired.

"There are aspects of the foundation's work we didn't anticipate but very much want to be a part of."

Last year, the Stephen Lewis Foundation raised close to $12 million from some 50,000 donors.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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