Most people avoid anything contagious around this time of year, especially if it means sniffles and a sore throat. However, Wendy Walters, a stay-at-home mother of two young girls in Stittsville, Ont., in the Ottawa valley, has something that is catching on faster than a case of the December flu. And it’s making everyone who comes down with it feel terrific.
You could probably call it the bug of kindness. Walters caught a serious case of it on an after-dinner walk through Ottawa’s ByWard Market in June, after a rare, romantic evening with her husband Dave to celebrate their eleventh wedding anniversary. She was shocked to see the numbers of homeless men, women and youths on the street, their belongings beside them in garbage bags. The sight wasn’t new to her husband, an electrical engineer who works in the downtown business sector as a patent agent. “My husband said, ‘You’ve got to just not look at them,’” says Walters. “But I’m a mom, and I don’t want to see kids on the street. What if that was my kid out there?”
Walters went home that evening determined to do something to make a difference--something other than throwing money at the problem. “I really worried that giving someone on the street a loonie would be feeding an addiction of drugs or alcohol,” she says. “I told my husband I would feel better dropping a granola bar in their hands than money.”
But instead of just settling for a snack bar, she started a project that the family now calls Angels with Backpacks. Since late August, Walters has purchased backpacks at the local dollar store, and her daughters have helped stuff them with about $25 worth of basic necessities: blankets, socks, soap, mittens, water bottles, shampoo, underwear, toothbrushes, hair brushes, bus tickets, deodorant, nonperishable food items, like juice boxes and, yes, granola bars, to name just a few of the rations included.
Walters told her daughters, Charlotte, seven, and Hayley, nine, who each receive a weekly allowance of a few dollars, that she expected them to pay for at least one of the items every week. “I realized a fantastic learning experience awaited my children if they took part in this,” she says. “They can learn what a basic necessity is. They can learn about the realities of homeless youth, and receive a lesson in compassion they will never forget.” But instead of resenting having to sacrifice some of their allowance, the kids often spent every last dollar they had on the backpack bundles.
And the enthusiasm is spreading. After stuffing dozens of backpacks herself, Walters sent a letter to all her friends encouraging them to embark on their own acts of kindness, no matter how small. She’s been working with local youth groups to get other kids involved, and even managed to get retirement homes on board, with elderly residents knitting hats, mittens and scarves to donate. “Generosity is infectious,” says Walters.
Ottawa-area Girl Guide, Spark and Brownie groups have filled 10 backpacks already and say they’ve got more coming. After a local newspaper story in October, Ottawa Central Services, which works with the homeless, received 25 filled backpacks from people inspired by the Walters’ example. A Quebec Girl Guide troop contacted Walters in December offering five stuffed-to-overflowing backpacks, plus boxes more of items they couldn’t fit. That same month, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty wrote a letter to the Walters, commending them for teaching their daughters to be “ambassadors” and making a “real, positive difference” in the community. The outreach committee of a nearby church, St. Matthew’s Church in the Glebe neighbourhood of Ottawa, contacted her on December 5 to say they bought 20 backpacks and asked parishioners to fill them up as a Christmas present. Folks responded with an outpouring of generosity. The church has at least 25 stuffed backpacks to give out at the youth shelter’s Christmas party on December 21. Says Ava Hammond, chair of the church committee, “The idea has become a contagious reality.”
Based on Canadian government estimates of homeless numbers, roughly 11,000 kids are out on the street any given night of the year. And while Walters admits that the backpacks themselves will not cure the problem of youth homelessness, some of which is voluntary (youth who simply don’t want to live at home), some of which is necessary (those youth who are kicked out of the house or have only abuse waiting for them there), she believes that making a difference in a youth’s life can help. “I can make a child feel cared about. That could put them on a more positive path than living on the streets.” In the meantime, says Walters, her own children are learning to be thankful for what they have and that helping others is not “simply dropping a coin in a hat.”
And despite all the attention she has earned, Walters is adamant that she does not want people’s praise, admiration or even their donations. “Everyone has to pick a cause,” she says. “I picked this one because it breaks my heart to think it could ever be my kids on the street alone. The only reason we’ve gone public is to encourage other people to do something. Don’t send us money. Do a backpack of your own.”
Western Standard
January 3, 2005
