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Best of Toronto : NOW’S 1st Annual Toronto’s Outstanding People Awards

Rating: NNNNN


We asked you to nominate people who have made a difference in your neighbourhood. Here are the T.O.P. winners in your own words.

Tanis Rideout

Literature for Life worker

Tanis is part of an east-end group called Literature for Life, which puts on reading sessions and writing seminars for young women from Toronto’s at-risk communities. Working with young single mothers, the group teaches and promotes writing skills, trying to provide a positive creative outlet for these troubled women. More than a few times, a victim of violence we’ve read about in our papers or seen on the news is directly associated with the group, be it a mother or son or daughter from the program. As with any not-for-profit group, the pay doesn’t match the dedication Tanis puts into her work helping these women realize their sense of self-worth. – by Stewart Jones

Abbas Jahangiri

owner, El Mocambo charity founder

A new-age Robin Hood, Abbas uses his yellow Hummer for good, not evil. Late at night, he scours the core looking for the poor, the homeless, the hungry. Calling them by name, he gives them food, water, blankets, clothing and love. At the El Mocambo, he books up-and-coming bands. Canned food donations get you access for less, and proceeds go to charity. Wednesdays, he’s running the soup kitchen at the Mother Teresa home he built in Parkdale. He gets no pay and (barely) sleeps in a small room at the El Mo. – – by Salima Pirani

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Teachers of Bond Street Nursery School

The Bond Street Nursery School, a United Way agency, is a half-day program for 64 children aged two to five. It includes daily transportation by bus to school and back, an intervention program to help children with special needs and a family support program for parents. It serves the areas of Regent Park and St. James Town. The program was started in 1937 to help children and families living in poverty. – – by Catherine Bobbie

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Helen Lenskyj

professor, department of sociology and equity in education, U of T

Helen has been a tireless critic of Olympic propaganda, homophobia and the tyranny of professional/high-ranking sport. For insisting on community-level sport, for demanding social justice and for always climbing 12 flights of stairs to work, Helen deserves this. – by Marie Vander Kloet

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Matt Blair

founder of mediareform.ca and Indiepolitik

I can hardly think of anybody I respect more than the founder of Indiepolitik and MediaReform.ca. Through Indiepolitik he co-created Strong Words with Kate Carraway, a reading night that exposes local writers (both unknown and critically acclaimed) to an artsy and creative indie music community. His “The Just” marathons inspire those same people to participate in a unique sort of charity fundraiser. Whenever I see him he’s working or thinking about another way to make Toronto a better place. He is, in short, an incredibly hardworking yet unobtrusive inspiration to us all. – by Eileen Nonoyama

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Audrey Fernie

teacher community activist

As a teacher, Miss Fernie taught her students to think rather than just to learn. Many of them still remember Miss Fernie and see her as their mentor. She sponsored and assisted a family from Vietnam. She has been an ardent social activist all her life devoting countless hours to helping the poor, working in the Out of the Cold programs and offering moral and financial support to those in need. One of her greatest accomplishments is to have been instrumental in the establishment of a children’s park and playground in the neighbourhood. Not only did she come up with the idea and see that it came to fruition, but she monitors it closely so that repairs are reported and new suggestions for improvement are conveyed. At 78 she no longer is able to ride her bike or get to as many meetings as she used to however, she remains the most well-read and informed woman I have ever met. – by Sue Ann Elite

Shamez Amlani

activist, restaurateur

Shamez Amlani is the co-founder of Streets Are for People, a group whose efforts include the car-free Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market and bike polo in the park. His organizational skills, positive energy and enthusiasm are helping Toronto take back our public spaces from the smog-filled congestion of motor vehicles. His tireless efforts come along with his restaurant, La Palette, which champions locally grown organic foods and is run car-free. Toronto is lucky to have such an outstanding character, whose interests promote healthy living and having fun in our great city! – by Lisa Logan

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photo by Sarah Wiggins

Victoria Nolan

teacher, Team Canada rower

Vicky is an amazing young woman: elementary school teacher with the TDSB, loving wife and mother of two preschoolers (four and two years old), and her adaptive rowing team won the bronze medal for Canada September 1 at the World Rowing Championships in Munich. Next stop the Paralympics! By the way, Vicky is blind. – by Barb Pimento

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Jim Ibbitson

maintenance worker for Toronto Community Housing at 2739 Victoria Park

I would like to nominate Jim because on August 30 he stepped in and saved my dog’s life. She was being attacked by a pit bull cross. He chose to put himself at risk of serious injury in order to help my 10-pound dog survive the attack. He saved her life and mine, for I couldn’t live without my very best friend, Avril. He’s everything to me and her brother, Zero. Jim is my hero. – by Johanna Ambridge

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Nancy Chisholm

works at 2 for 1 Video on Parliament

This is the kind of person one hopes to find everywhere. Nancy is the kind of woman who will lend you her personal copy of a film if the bastard who took out the one you want has no intention of returning it. I always gravitate toward renting those bearing Nancy’s Post-it note reviews. They are brief but say all that needs to be said to sell a film. She will concede goodness even in a movie featuring an actor she can’t stand. She is a mom and no doubt a good one, and her heart is huge. – by Janet Walers

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