The Kinsmen Club of Lindsay has donated $50,000 to the Ross Memorial Hospital (RMH) Foundation — the largest single donation the club has made to the foundation.

The funds will support the cost of medical equipment and technology at Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay that are not covered by provincial funding, including the hospital’s new CT scanner and MRI and digital transformation technology.

“This gift will help the hospital acquire the most advanced medical technology and bedside tools, and connect them to patients’ health information records, so that every test and treatment is noted in real time and available to patients and their healthcare team,” says RMH Foundation CEO Erin Coons in a media release.

“The volunteers who champion community causes through their service organizations are local champions,” Coons adds. “They are valued members of our donor family at the Ross.”

The Kinsmen Club of Lindsay, who announced the donation as as part of Kin Canada’s celebrations for the National Day of KINdness on February 20, attribute the significant increase in local
contributions to the growth of the Kinsmen Super TV Bingo.

“If there was any silver lining out of COVID at all, it’s that you stayed home to play bingo with Kinsmen Super TV Bingo,” says Brad Fraser, president of the Kinsmen Club of Lindsay. “As a result, we are able to share those proceeds. Thank you.”

Along with the $50,000 donation, the Kinsmen Club of Lindsay has previously donated to support the Ross Memorial Hospital’s first CT scanner, the redevelopment of the hospital’s maternity ward, and the capital campaign that doubled the size of the hospital 20 years ago. The Kinsmen Club of Lindsay’s cumulative giving has earned it a founder plaque on the hospital’s donor recognition wall.

The second Sunday of March is almost here, which means it’s time to “spring forward” as daylight saving time (DST) begins at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 13th and clocks move forward an hour.

Whether you call it “daylight savings” or “summer time” or “cottage time”, the good news is that we’ll get more daylight in the evening hours (the sun will set at 7:17 p.m. on Sunday night). The bad news is that we’ll lose an hour of sleep and it will be darker in the morning (the sun will rise at 7:29 a.m. on Sunday morning).

If you still have any manual clocks, remember to set them forward an hour before you go to bed on Saturday night.

The time change is also when you should replace the batteries in your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and check whether the devices need to be replaced (if they are more than 10 years old, they probably do).

Who invented DST and why?

Although it’s commonly believed Benjamin Franklin came up with the idea for DST, it was actually New Zealand entomologist George Hudson.

In 1895, Hudson proposed a two-hour shift in the clocks (he wanted more daylight to collect insects).

“The effect of this alteration would be to advance all the day’s operations in summer two hours compared with the present system,” Hudson wrote in 1898, explaining his original proposal. “In this way the early-morning daylight would be utilised, and a long period of daylight leisure would be made available in the evening for cricket, gardening, cycling, or any other outdoor pursuit desired.”

A few years later, English outdoorsman William Willett also proposed advancing the clocks during the summer months (he wanted more daylight to golf).

The first governments to implement DST were Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1916, as a way to conserve coal during World War I. Britain and most other European countries adopted it shortly after, with the United States and Canada adopting it in 1918.

DST used to begin the first Sunday of April and end the last Sunday of October, but in 2007 the U.S. decided to change it to begin the second Sunday of March and end the first Sunday of November in an attempt to conserve energy.

To avoid issues with economic and social interactions with the U.S., the Canadian provinces that observe DST followed suit.

Why don’t we just get rid of DST?

If the Ontario government has its way, we’ll be ending the practice of changing our clocks twice a year — but by making DST permanent rather than getting rid of it.

On November 25, 2020, the Ontario government gave royal assent to The Time Amendment Act, a private members’ bill tabled by Ottawa-West Nepean MPP Jeremy Roberts that proposed making “the time now called daylight saving time the standard time year-round”.

Researchers in chronobiology (the study of biological rhythms) agree that we should get rid of the bi-annual time change, but not by making DST permanent. They say we should be permanently adopting standard time instead.

“Based on current chronobiology knowledge, permanent Standard Time (ST) would be a wiser, healthier choice,” the Canadian Society for Chronobiology writes on Twitter.

Chronobiologists say adopting permanent standard time would move sunrise closer to our body’s internal clock, while permanent daylight saving time would move it further away. It’s the light in the morning that is most important in resetting our biological clocks, they say.

And it’s not just the Canadian Society for Chronobiology advocating for the permanent adoption of standard time. The U.S.-based Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, the European Biological Rhythms Society, and the European Sleep Research Society have all issued statements supporting getting rid of DST.

As for the province’s The Time Amendment Act actually being enacted, don’t hold your breath. Ontario will only make DST permanent if the province of Quebec and the state of New York do the same.

“We’ve built in a contingency to make sure that this bill will only come into force at the discretion of Ontario’s Attorney General,” MPP Roberts said in the Ontario legislature on November 25th. “The Attorney General has given me his word that he will not do this until we get our other neighbouring jurisdictions on board.”

What are the health effects of DST?

While the evidence is mixed, some research has found that when we “spring forward” the risk of heart attacks and traffic accidents increases.

Losing an hour of sleep in the spring can affect both your cognitive ability and your physical health, especially if you aren’t getting enough sleep to begin with.

That’s because moving clocks forward changes our exposure to daylight and affects our circadian rhythm (the body’s natural internal clock).

It can take up to a week to adjust your internal clock to the shift in daylight hours, so here are some suggestions for how you and your family can adapt more quickly to the coming time change:

• Each morning leading up to the time change on Sunday, try waking up 15 minutes earlier than normal.
• Also try going to bed 15 minutes earlier than normal each night. You can help prepare your body for an earlier bedtime by not eating two hours before you go to sleep, and put down your devices an hour before bed.
• Eat a healthy breakfast when you first wake up, as food is one way to tell your body it’s the beginning of the day.
• After the time change, expose yourself to daylight during waking hours as much as possible.
• Reduce your use of caffeine and alcohol during the day and increase your physical activity.

Beloved Peterborough costume designer and artist Howard Berry passed away on Thursday (March 3) in his 84th year.

Berry, who designed costumes for the Peterborough Theatre Guild for almost 40 years, had a lifelong passion for colour and design.

“I was just born this crazy creative person,” he told kawarthaNOW in a 2017 interview, in advance of a three-day retrospective of his work at The Mount Community Centre. “My father bought me my first sewing machine at the age of five. It was a little hand-cranked one. By age eight, I had a regular Singer machine and was making clothes for my mother and my sister.”

Born in Toronto and raised in Huntsville, Berry returned to Toronto in 1956 to enrol in Ryerson’s fashion design program. After they refused to admit him because he was a man, he enrolled in a three-year course at a private design school run by Toronto designer Galasso.

After he graduated in 1959, his father offered to either send him to Paris to work as an apprentice or help him set up his own design shop. For three years, he designed custom-made clothing from his shop on Avenue Road in Toronto.

After a series of other jobs, including one designing costumes for the early days of the Shaw Festival, in 1977 he moved to the Peterborough area. He eventually opened Howard Berry Designs in Charlotte Mews and, in 1980, began designing costumes for the Peterborough Theatre Guild.

“I will never forget going over to the Theatre Guild shortly after I arrived in Canada,” writes playwright Robert Ainsworth in a Peterborough Theatre Guild tribute to Berry. “The production was Oliver, directed by Gillian Wilson. I was so impressed with the production that I had to go backstage to see the behind scenes of this amazing local theatre.”

“The first person I met was the costume designer, Howard, who was altering the costume of a cast member, and boy did he know what he was doing! He was in charge and had everyone hopping. He was loud, direct and totally dedicated to his art. I have to say I was actually a little star stuck by his persona. That was 1982, and anyone who knows Howard will agree that dedication to his art never waned.”

“Over the years I got to know Howard’s work. I would chat to actors backstage before the production. When the curtain opened and those actors walked onstage they were totally transformed into their characters by Howard’s amazing costumes. You could walk into the theatre and know immediately who had dressed the set. The audience would be transported to nineteenth century France or fourteenth century Italy.”

“Howard was known to research not only what people wore in that country in that time period, but what materials were used, even down to the exact buttons and gloves. Much more than that was the man we all loved. Howard was a beautiful, talented man who always had a smile on his face.”

One of Berry’s final accomplishments for the stage was designing both the costumes and the set for the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s acclaimed 2015 production of of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

“For Cats, you didn’t just make a costume.” Berry recalled in his 2017 interview with kawarthaNOW. “A cat’s head matches its body, so I worked with Carol Jones who was in charge of makeup at the time, and we went through catalogues to order wigs that would be the right colour to match the makeup and costume. Then I had a friend come in who styled each wig to get the character of each cat. Then when it came to the makeup, we had to match that in the face.”

“So we had to make the costume to match everything else,” Berry said. “That a lot of fun. We had a huge team of workers on that. We had twelve ladies doing costumes, and another eight ladies doing hair and makeup every night.”

The Eastern Ontario Drama League recognized Berry’s talents with a set design award in 1990, a best visual presentation award in 2008, and a costume design award in 2009. In 2009, Theatre Ontario also recognized Berry’s talents with a costume design award. In 2015, he and the cast and crew of the production of Twelfth Night received a cultural betterment award from the City of Peterborough. In 2018, Berry was inducted into the Peterborough Pathway of Fame.

According to the Peterborough Theatre Guild, a celebration of Berry’s life will be announced at a future date in the spring.

“When I pass I don’t want a big funeral,” Berry told Peterborough This Week in a 2017 interview. “I want a party at The Guild with six bottles of Scotch and someone singing ‘I Did It My Way.'”

Sobeys in Fenelon Falls has presented The Salvation Army with Sobeys gift cards worth more than $13,000.

During the Christmas season, Sobeys encouraged its customers and employees to make donations in support of the local food bank, which is operated by The Salvation Army.

“The help we are able to give is made possible by community partners such as Sobeys,” says Miya Bradburn, pastor at The Salvation Army Fenelon Falls, in a media release. “Sobeys gives back to its community, which inspires others to join them.”

With a building renovation completed, including a new commercial kitchen, The Salvation Army is planning to provide fresh snacks and possibly even meals for those facing food insecurity.

“With this wonderful gift, we have greater opportunity to provide healthy, fresh food to clients who might otherwise be unable to do so,” Bradburn says. “We have the means to provide fruit and vegetables now, supplementing the non-perishables the community so graciously donates on a regular basis.”

The Salvation Army also raised $51,257 during its Christmas kettle campaign in Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon, and Coboconk.

Following last week’s announcement of $1.3 million in provincial funding for a new Consumption and Treatment Services site in Peterborough, the Ontario government has announced additional funding to address the opioid crisis in the Peterborough area.

Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith announced $367,480 in provincial funding for the “Moving Beyond Addiction” pilot project on Friday (March 4) at a media conference at the Peterborough City-County Paramedics administrative office. He was joined by Whitepath Consulting president and CEO Peggy Shaughnessy and Elizabeth Fry Society executive director Debbie Carriere.

Under the pilot project, local non-profit organization Right to Heal will receive the funding to expand their services in the Peterborough area over a 16-month period. The organization will use the Redpath addiction treatment programs from Peterborough’s Whitepath Consulting, a social enterprise Shaughnessy founded in 2002 to help anyone affected by addictions, mental health, abuse, and bullying.

“Individuals with addictions more often than not develop addictions by using substances to either feel something or numb something,” MPP Smith says in a media release. “The root cause is almost always trauma — whether it’s from abuse, mental health challenges, or pain. If we are truly going to address the mental health and addictions crisis, a wide variety of treatments options need to exist locally.”

Clients referred to the pilot project will typically be homeless, at risk of homelessness, living with mental health or addictions issues and trauma, or disconnected from appropriate services. The Elizabeth Fry Society will administer the client referral process.

“We have had the opportunity to connect clients to the program and are witnessing firsthand the impact Redpath has,” Carriere says. “We at Elizabeth Fry can see this program coming alive through our referrals from various connections within the health care and criminal justice sectors. As someone who has completed this program myself, I can truly speak to the excellent opportunity this is bringing to our community for healing.”

The primary target population for the pilot project will be clients referred by Peterborough police, Peterborough County-City Paramedics, and Peterborough Regional Health Centre who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing opioid overdoses.

The secondary target population will be clients referred from health and social services such as the Opioid Response Hub and Consumption and Treatment Services Site, Brock Mission, Cameron House, and One Roof Community Centre. The project will also accept family and self-referrals.

“The Right to Heal pilot program will turn many lives around, reducing homelessness, addiction, crime, and overdose deaths in our community,” MPP Smith says.

With the provincial funding, Right to Heal will have the capacity to address the needs of 320 people in the community.

Once referred to the program, clients will undergo a rigorous and evidence-based assessment to determine the correct treatment for their unique needs, considering factors including backgrounds of trauma, abuse, domestic violence, housing status, financial situation, and level of substance abuse.

Once the assessment is complete, clients enter into one-on-one counselling or the Redpath intervention program or both. Through 21 three-hour counselling and training sessions, the Redpath program uses psychology-based methods to identify the reasons behind substance abuse and helps a person develop the social, emotional, and practical skills to move beyond addiction.

Clients will then enter an after-care program, requiring two hours every week for group training sessions focusing on personal development and fully reintegrating the clients back into society.

“This announcement comes to almost the day of our 20th anniversary of Whitepath Consulting,” Shaughnessy says. “We have been delivering addiction and mental health services across Canada and beyond during this time and have developed great partnerships with many organizations within the city and surrounding areas.”

“With the recent announcement regarding the Consumption and Treatment Services (site) funding, this funding will help expand addiction treatment services in our area and allow funding for the Redpath program that has shown great success in other areas,” she added, thanking MPP Smith for his support and efforts in securing funding.