Making a Difference
Frustration and a sense of helplessness seems to be predominant emotions cresting on the unending wave of news from the south of us. The scale of this societal shift tempts us to think that we are too small…
Read MoreFrustration and a sense of helplessness seems to be predominant emotions cresting on the unending wave of news from the south of us. The scale of this societal shift tempts us to think that we are too small…
Read MoreMay 8, 2024 This week marks a milestone anniversary in which we honour the life and legacy of Jeleel Stewart. Despite decades of being written out of our history, we remember those who have paid the ultimate price for the…
Read MoreNOTL Local – Feb.25, 2024 It was the video clip of a young boy dancing that gutted me. He was wearing a jacket that was way too big, hands waving in the air, while the band played…
Read MoreThe Local, July 3, 2023 The story opens with Malaika, a little girl in the Caribbean, who awakens from her sleep after a dream of a flying man carrying a basket of fruit – peaches, apples, and cherries –…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local, June 22, 2023 It was an appreciative congregation who met on Sunday night for the second last Caribbean Workers Outreach Project church service of the season. Hosted by Bethany Mennonite Church for decades it…
Read MoreThe Local – Friday, Oct.28 It happened in a split second – metal on bone, laundry scattered, a twisted bike frame on the side of the street, faces blurring in and out of his vision. It had been a hectic…
Read MoreFor many of us 2022 will be remembered as a time when a caring community shone brightly, despite the second year of COVID related challenges. Last spring the delivery of more than 500 welcome kits to farm workers was a…
Read MoreMaking connections enriches a community July 2021 by Jane Andres It’s a Tuesday night and I’m pulling up to the Serlucca farm on Concession 2, the car loaded with groceries. Dan, the farm owner, greets me with a big…
Read MoreNOTL Local, October 2, 2020 https://notllocal.com/2020/10/02/library-books-for-kids-heading-to-jamaica/ In February 2012 Jodie Godwin, her 12 year old daughter Leah and I had the opportunity to visit Jamaica. The purpose of the trip was to meet the families of the men who worked…
Read MoreThe Joy of Connection Part 3 June 2020 Until the last quarter century, most of early black history in Niagara on the Lake was buried in obscure documents or barely acknowledged by one of our town’s foremost historians, William Kirby….
Read MoreThe Niagara on the Lake Local, June 22 https://notllocal.com/2020/06/25/farm-worker-struggles-to-get-permanent-resident-status/ It never gets easier. There is a price to be paid for families that are separated for eight months of the year. Men and women working here on the temporary…
Read MoreThere has been much in the news lately regarding the systemic racism which most of us who have grown up in a white dominated culture have been blissfully unaware of, yet benefited from. We have a lot to process, especially…
Read MoreIt was a beautiful evening in fall and I was enjoying a quiet time puttering about in my front yard when I heard the noise. It was a muffled crack followed by an onslaught of men’s excited voices, then…
Read MoreIn a guest room in our bed and breakfast there is a little basket with a unique contraption tucked in amongst a collection of loose photos. The stereograph was a gift from my husband years ago, a low tech…
Read MoreRemembering a name forges human connection March 28, 2019 by Jane Andres Denford Thomas with Jodie and Leah Godwin on top of Juan Del Bolas…
Read MoreFebruary 6, 2019 by Jane Andres It had all the feels of a long anticipated reunion, the adults hugging and laughing as the children watched with shy smiles, waiting to be introduced. Indeed it was a special kind of extended family reunion,…
Read MoreEating Niagara – September 5, 2015 By Tiffany Mayer A pile of photographs sits on Jane Andres’s dining room table.In them, faces beam out at the viewer: middle school-aged students wear caps and gowns to mark the successful end of…
Read MoreBy NICHOLAS KEUNG Friday, May 3, 2013 It is not often migrant farm workers get to party and go to a concert after a long day of back-bending labour in the field.Certainly not a concert dedicated to them, with black gospel, reggae and R&B…
Read More