Author: Kate Adach

In an intimate gathering Friday evening, 14 seniors took turns performing music, spoken word and theatrical vignettes to each other within a cozy living room of the Barclay Manor. It was the West End Seniors’ Network’s first coffee house, an event that gave members the chance to showcase their creative talents and confront perceptions of themselves.

“I’m coming out as a fat woman,” said Sheila Baxter, 77. “I want people to know that fat women can be beautiful. … It’s very radical.”

The women sat tightly together in armchairs arranged to face a blue wall of the heritage building. Canes were propped up against many of the chairs  and handbags rested on the floor by their feet. The chair-less space was a  square of brown carpet that would serve as the stage.

Baxter, a published author and playwright, shared two of her poems with the small group: “Ode to a Beautiful Fat Woman” and “Someone to Wrinkle With”. Gripping a cane in one hand and an open binder in the other, she leaned her large frame in toward the audience. Her tear-filled eyes connected with theirs.

Another member, a retired lawyer, read a clever piece she had authored about a misunderstood parrot. Four musicians played and sang a mix of rousing Scottish tunes, folk songs and Gershwin hits while the group clapped and hummed along. One of these women followed her act with an impromptu round of jokes.

But most of the performances were theatrical pieces  prepared under the guidance and training of Tidal Grace, an acting coach and the originator of the Seniors’ Theatre Project.

Grace, 40, began the project as a ‘wellness through acting’ program. Every Tuesday morning he volunteers his time to lead the project’s members through theatre workshops.

“Tidal Grace is the most amazing man,” said Baxter. “He teaches people how to use your emotions, how to know your emotions, and not to be scared to share your feelings.”

One of his students, Yolande Cousineau, performed a comedic monologue about stage fright. Her character was at an audition, she was panicking. The 76-year-old Cousineau’s hands shook rapidly as she portrayed the character. As the scene neared climax she had her whole upper body convulsing. The crowd laughed and applauded her brave performance.

“I chose this piece,” said Cousineau, “because I have Parkinson’s.”

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Coffee house events are now scheduled for the last Friday of every month.

The drag-queen-hosted charity event Bingo for Life, held weekly to support people with terminal illnesses, broke its fundraising record this past month by surpassing $5000.

Amid a dance party atmosphere of spinning lights and Top 40s music, over 120 people packed the Celebrities Night Club dance floor Wednesday to sit at table tops strewn with bingo cards, ink daubers and $3 drinks. Their donations raised $1250 toward food services at the Vancouver Friends for Life Society, an organization which provides support to people living with AIDS and other terminal illnesses.

Despite the serious cause, “Joan-E”, the heavy-set and fouled-mouthed drag queen who has been hosting the event since its inception in 1997, had the room laughing and cheering all night. Her sidekick “Summer Clearance” played along.

The drag queen duo sat at a table on a raised platform to the side of the dance floor. Joan-E was donned in a spaghetti strap dress, sparkling silver heels and a large hairpiece of dark curls. She pressed a wireless microphone against her lipstick-caked mouth. Summer would pass her a ball. Joan-E would tell a joke.

It all played out much like a Rocky Horror party. Each time Joan-E called “O-69!” strobe lights flashed and the group cheered. After “B-4!”, came a synchronous: “B-4 What!?”

The bingo players – that is, partiers – spanned nearly all ages, races, gender identities and orientations.

Near the DJ booth sat a bachelorette party of nine young women in devil’s horns. The 21-year-old soon-to-be-bride had never attended Gay Bingo before. Her friends found the event online.

Another party table was celebrating a 55th birthday. This was the third year the lesbian bartender had held her birthday party at Gay Bingo.

Men too were mixed in with partners and friends across the dance floor and bar tops. Those who sat on bar stools swung their feet to the soundtrack of kitschy theme songs. Others changed seats between rounds to chat with someone new.

Muscular male servers balanced trays of cheap drinks and swung their hips while squeezing between tables.

Plasma screens flashed “Bingo for Life!” and “We Have a Winner!”

Organizers said the funds raised by Bingo for Life are increasingly important for the gay community.

“People living with life threatening illnesses are off the government’s ‘ra-ra list’,” said Terry Halliday, a long-time Friends for Life volunteer. “So we need [the society] to support the community.”

Usually when West End residents see men and women on Davie Street wearing the community policing centre’s signature yellow shirts, they can assume a group of volunteer officers are on patrol. But Saturday those same volunteers donned their yellow shirts to raise awareness of the West End Coal Harbour Community Policing Centre’s services in an open house event.

“There’s a lack of knowing what we do,” said Constable Kelly Risebrough of the community’s perception of the centre. “That’s why these days are important.”

The open house promoted what some staff said are the lesser-known services at the centre, such as crime prevention and access to community resources.

A display on the street featured the centre’s Speed Watch program. Bordered by pylons, a radar gun stood in the road facing oncoming traffic. A large speedometer flashed each driver’s speeds as they passed. A volunteer officer recorded these on a clipboard.

On the sidewalk stood a table of pamphlets, posters, and a bike engraving station. Cyclists could have their drivers licence number engraved into their bikes as a method of theft prevention or theft retrieval.

Inside the centre volunteers answered questions and toured visitors past the reception desk to offices, meeting rooms, bike-patrol storage and a lounge. Most visitors were young families that had only become aware of the event by the display out front.

Parents of young children were invited to have a Child Find I.D. Kit made that they could store at home in the case of an emergency.

Yi Hong Li, a 30-year-old BCIT forensics graduate and volunteer, gently dipped the little ones’ fingerprints in ink and rolled them onto personal booklets. Many children stood proudly against a measuring tool and exposed toothless smiles as their pictures were taken.

“Lovely idea, isn’t it?,” said Eileen Brimacombe, an 82-year-old office volunteer, of the positive interaction the children were having with the officers. “And now they won’t grow up saying ‘Oh no! There’s a police man!’”

Aleya Trott, the centre’s executive director, said she thinks the West End community may not have a complete understanding of what the centre can offer.

“I think the community knows we’re here,” said Trott, “and they know that they can come to us when they’re in trouble, but I don’t think they know all that we do.”

Preparing a dinner party for 150 might seem daunting, but volunteers at the First Baptist Church’s shelter service have pulled off the feat every Tuesday for over a decade. The weekly event provides some of the city’s most vulnerable men and women with a hot dinner and the option of spending the night.

On the menu this past Tuesday: meat chili, garden salad, fresh bread, apple cake, coffee and iced tea.

As with every week, the meal’s success hinged on the hands, hearts and labour of nearly 50 diverse volunteers.

Just two hours before the dining hall would be teeming, the church’s industrial-sized kitchen was filled with volunteers outfitted in plastic gloves and aprons. Each had a task.

Around an island counter-top, six university-aged men and women crowded together to cut veggies and sort fruit. They chatted loudly over the whir of oven fans and rock music. Across from them, a petite woman in her 30s whipped powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. Towering beside her, a man stirred pitchers of juice. Another volunteer mopped up coffee. The machine had overflowed, again.

“We have never had a slow Tuesday,” said Pastor Bob Swann, in reference to the large crew of volunteers. He began the program in March 1999.

Most volunteers said they attend every week when possible, and many speculated that only a minority were members of the church. One made a point of describing himself as agnostic.

Among the diverse group of lawyers, graduate students, artists, and recovering addicts, there was only one man in the kitchen who was not busy working.

“I am Security International,” said the 83-year-old French Canadian man of his role at the shelter. “My job is to make sure there is no trouble.”

A regular volunteer, he had assigned himself to the role of a doorman, despite being barely 5-feet tall with a curved spine.  At 9 p.m., when the doors were scheduled to open, he would join church staff at the Burrard Street entrance. “I only let love in [to the shelter],” he said. “If you have the big D [the Devil] in your heart, don’t bother to come in.”

While he introduced himself openly, the white-haired security guard requested not to have his name published in connection to his church work.

“I do this for the Lord only,” he said. “When we give our name we are too proud of what we do.”

Vancouver’s vibrant West End was buzzing Saturday as thousands attended the 7th Annual Davie Day street festival. Over 130 vendors and entertainers lined Davie Street from Burrard to Broughton, adding additional colour to a backdrop of rainbow flags and bright storefront canopies.

From the west-facing windows of St. Paul Hospital’s top storey, area residents could be seen below, moving through side streets to and from the festivities. The drumming of samba beats carried upward.

“The West End is lousy with festivals,” said Rob MacDonald, a hospital porter and long-time area resident. “But that’s part of what gives these streets so much character.”

On the ground, crowds gathered around dance troops to take pictures and clap along with the music, while dog walkers stopped to sample baked goods and receive head massages. Children, lined up for face painting, held tightly to helium balloons. One man with a rainbow mohawk browsed booths while munching on popcorn.

Nearly every store and community centre on Davie Street had its own booth. Outside of the West End – Coal Harbour Community Policing Centre, volunteers in yellow shirts led kids through a safety-skills obstacle course made of pylons and hula hoops. Across from them, a smoke shop displayed a table of bongs. Hung from it was a sign that read: “Smoke More, Bitch Less”.

The West End Business Improvement Association holds the event annually to help promote local businesses, yet it welcomed outside contributors. Independent farmers sold produce, while artists from the Stanley Park Painters Circle displayed their work. One busker, Daniel Nimmo, approached organizers just as the event was starting to ask if he could promote his Fringe Festival play. They found a space for him to perform right in the centre of the action.

“All of these festivals are the exact same,” 29 year-old Angela Mader was overheard telling her friends. Clearly she hadn’t seen Nimmo. “But I guess that’s why I keep coming back”, she said.

By afternoon, light rain barely slowed the event. Many couples shared umbrellas. One man walked with a newspaper draped over his head. He seemed unfazed.

In fact, it was the weather that spurred one area resident to attend Davie Day. “I wanted to go hiking, but there’s rain,” said Jonathan Ali. “I knew there would be something fun to do around here instead”, he said of his West End neighbourhood, “and so I came down here.”