Archive for the 'Halloween' Category

Eternal return

November 1, 2007

Great parade

TONY
“Phil, you should have seen the costume that the kids dressed me in last night.”

PHILIP
“What kids were those?”

TONY
“I’ve been going out with this family on Halloween for years. Back when my wife was alive, we used to go ‘trick or treating’ with them. Now they’ve got their own kids, which is who I went out with last night.”

PHILIP
“So what was your costume?”

TONY
“Let me put it this way — I had fishnet stockings, short skirt, garters, everything you can think of. My boobs were filled up with kids’ socks. I even had two guys proposition me. Anyway, the kids had a riot but I wonder what they told their mom afterwards.”

Posted in beggar, children, costume, family, fishnet, Great Parade, Halloween, homeless, homelessness, kids, Kundera, Laura Knight, mask, mom, Nietzsche, panhandler, riot, skin, stockings, street people, trick or treat, unbearable lightness | Leave a Comment »

Tony & The Globe and Mail & the vanishing Unicef box

October 30, 2006

PHILIP
At the very top of page 1 of today’s Globe and Mail, the banner reads: “Unicef box vanishes on Halloween.” The banner points to an article about the new GiveMeaning box that replaces the now-defunct Unicef boxes. Both are cardboard but the similarity just about ends there.

The full article is on p. A14. Anthony Reinhart has written a wonderful piece about GiveMeaning’s new Halloween box. The article is accompanied with a nice photo of GiveMeaning’s founder and CEO (the photo is only available in the paper-paper). Disclaimer: Tom has been one of my very best friends for nearly ten years.

Tony wih GiveMeaning box

GiveMeaning is a registered charity.

Every child who collects money in their new GiveMeaning Halloween box is able to chose”their” favourite Canadian charity from a list. That charity gets 100% of the money collected by that child. Plus, every one who contributes money to the box gets a little paper slip of paper with a special Web site address. By going to that special Web site, contributors can track where their donation went.

At his regular place on the street, Tony is distributing the new, red Halloween boxes (as are two terrific cafes (Alternative Grounds (already mentioned in a previous posting) and Tinto, both in the midst of Toronto’s Roncesvalles enclave).

When I first asked Tony to distribute the boxes to parents passing by, he responded with: “Happy to do whatever I can do to help.”

Posted in Charity, GiveMeaning, Globe and Mail, Halloween, homeless, Roncesvalles, Unicef | 5 Comments »

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