City's 'African libraries lady' in select group

MIKE.DEAL@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Kathy Knowles, with books bound for Ghana, is a ‘transformational Canadian.’

Winnipegger Kathy Knowles, known to some as "the African libraries lady," flew to Toronto this week to be honoured with the likes of David Suzuki, Paul Martin, Rick Hansen, Henry Morgentaler, Stephen Lewis, Brenda Milner, Scott Gilmore, Jim Chu and James Cameron. She was one of "25 transformational Canadians" picked by the Globe and Mail from 700 nominations, because they've made "immeasurable improvement to the lives of others."

Says Knowles on her cell from Toronto: "I'm humbled to be part of this group. My work is certainly significant, but there isn't much recognition. It's exciting for me to be recognized beyond the circle of people I work with in Winnipeg."

The former nurse started 20 years ago sharing her own children's books with staff in Ghana, where her husband was posted, then holding a weekly library under a tree, then creating a library of 3,000 books housed in a 40-foot shipping container.

Last week, Knowles finished her seventh library in Ghana with a final shipment of books collected by Winnipeg volunteers, and with money from her Osu Children's Library Fund. Knowles heads the fund from Winnipeg, but she has worked with more than 200 library groups in African countries, teaching them how to create and manage libraries. The prize for each winner was $25,000 worth of Cisco technology to give to the non-profit or charitable organization of their choice, donated in partnership with Allstream. Knowles gifted hers to a Manitoba-based famine relief organization, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

The soiree in Toronto included a dinner Thursday night cooked by celebrity chef Jamie Kennedy. The 25 winners were asked to come alone so they could to get to know each other and a few dignitaries in the course of an intimate evening. And who knows what will come from a cross-pollination of these amazing minds?

-- -- --

SHAKIN' ALL OVER: More than 500 of Winnipeg's well-known movers and shakers showed up at the grand re-opening of the Pony Corral Downtown Wednesday night as a nightclub/restaurant, streaming through the doors from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Backlit in blue light, Mike and the Eastwood Gang were plainly visible onstage to all the cars crawling down St. Mary Avenue to get a look at the new elevated stage that puts performers on display to the outside world. Invited guests included the University of Winnipeg's Anna Maria Toppazzini, model/nurse Barb Sweatman, lawyer Sheldon Pinx, Ari Driver of Perfume Paradise, silver fox Kenny Dilk, Jackie Cameron from The Smoothie Bar at The Forks, volunteer Debora Mazur, Danny Gonen of Tony Roma's, Eastman Feed's Patti Clément and hubby Bob Clément of QA Adjusting. Alternating front-line singers included rockers Michelle Gerrardi and Shandra Levreault in a six-inch Mohawk hairdo, Dave "Elvis" Greene, and blues singer Kathy Kennedy. Says band leader Mike Chiappetta of the heat rising in the room: "Yeah, it was warm up there, but I like the heat!"

-- -- --

Here's something that will keep you awake at night. Two radio plays, Frankenstein and sci-fi themed X Minus One: the Colony episode, happen Saturday afternoon at Aqua Books, 274 Garry. Yours truly (a.k.a. Miss Lonelyhearts) will be playing Elizabeth, the doomed fiancée of the professor who created Frankenstein. Other actors with multiple parts in both 30-minute plays are author/thespian Tim Higgins (who wrote Bears on Broadway and Just Common Sense, The Life and Times of George Taylor Richardson) and author Chris Rutkowski of The Big Book of UFOs.

Got tips, events, sightings, unusual things going on? Email maureen.scurfield@winnipegfreepress.com or send mail to The Insider

c/o The Winnipeg Free Press at 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 25, 2011 B2