Womenade recipe was easy to make

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2002 (8748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TRUST a group of inspired women to take an idea from conception all the way to the third trimester in less than three weeks.

That’s what co-founder Kim Mills and her pals have done with Womenade, the grassroots charity aimed at helping struggling single mothers feed their families and find work.

As reported recently, the idea — which originated in Washington D.C. — is to invite women to a pot-luck dinner with a difference.

Not only does everyone bring a dish, they pay the $35 they would have spent if they had gone to a restaurant with “the girls.”

The money is then used to help single moms.

How?

Well, even before the first dinner has been held, Kim says they’re planning a “clothes library,” so women going on a job interview can borrow an outfit or blouse, sign it out and then return it cleaned and pressed.

The clothes are being donated, of course.

Winnipeg Harvest has offered its mentoring support, too.

“We hope to in turn be able to provide them with volunteers and food donations from our members,” Kim says.

The Winnipeg Convention Centre has donated its space for the dinner meetings.

And Kim has been overwhelmed with other offers. Chapters in Brandon and Portage are organizing; choirs, bands and other entertainers want to perform at the events; four banks and credit unions have volunteered free accounts; the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has offered 20 tickets per show; a Web designer has offered to build a Web page for Womenade; and several Winnipeg businesses have offered donations for the silent auction.

As for Lisanne Wood, the single, unemployed mother whose letter to the Free Press helped inspire Kim to create Womenade in Winnipeg, there’s news there, too. “Lisanne Wood is also very involved on our board. We hope to eventually be able to offer her a paid position to keep this thing together.”

If you’re feeling inspired by all of this, and want to get involved, you can reach Kim at kimmills@shaw.ca. or phone her at 299-7710.

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A BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE TO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN… I know many of you will remember Jo-Ann Stevens, the 43-year-old Fort Garry mother and wife whose breast-cancer battle cry was a study in courage and positive thinking.

“You can either live with cancer, or you can die with cancer,” Jo-Ann said during an interview five months ago. “I chose to live with it.”

And so she did.

For four years she lived with cancer, to the astonishment of doctors and friends.

And then last month, late on a Monday afternoon at the Riverview Health Centre, Jo-Ann finally died with the cancer she had lived with so long and stubbornly.

When I returned to work this week, an e-mail was waiting from a reader named Fay Walker, who wrote:

“I never knew her but I wish I had. I, too, have lived with cancer… I cut out that article and put it in the front of my book that I write my songs in. Every time I wrote some lyrics down, I’d see her face, I’d feel her strength and her courage and I would become stronger.

“I will keep her picture in my book and somehow I hope that she knows how positively she has touched so many people.”

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THE TOWER THAT KEEPS ON GROWING… While I was away, 13-year-old Emily Van Ryssel — The Tower of Tuna girl — was given an award for her efforts by Winnipeg Harvest.

Emily’s mother, Pat Van Ryssel, says her daughter was surprised and, to a certain extent, uneasy being the centre of media attention when it’s the cause that is important.

“She said she doesn’t ever want to be famous,” her mom reported.

Meanwhile, donations keep trickling in, here, and the dollar count — which is the same as the tuna-can count — has topped 3,000.

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THE (WAGGING) TAIL END… It’s been nearly a year now since my 14-year-old Golden retriever Krypto died.

It’s taken us that long to welcome a new Golden to the family.

Tait, our 10-week, 10 kilogram polar bear-like pup, has revived memories of something we’d forgotten over the last 15 years: That chewy, poopy, sleepless (for us, anyway) puppy stage.

Early one morning this week, as I stood outside the house waiting for Tait to do his “business,” a neighbour stopped by with a quote from Jung that sums up our situation.

“Puppy love,” said Rev. John Millar, “leads to a dog’s life.”

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca