Its All About Us

“I’m in my room, in a house, on a street, in a city, in a country, in the world, in the universe, I am small. But I think BIG.”
—I Am Small, illustrated by Kim Lefave, Doubleday Canada

To be of use “in community” is important to most of us. I’ve been lucky to work with great people and organizations over the years in some exciting projects. I am continually inspired. In this section of my website,some issues I’ve committed to and a few related links. -SF

Children’s Wellness
Poem Let Us Play commissioned by Recreation Nova Scotia and illustrated by fabulous artist Holly Carr who also did amazing puppets for the play When Dinosaurs Dine by Moonlight for Mermaid theatre. That poem is also published in If I Had A Million Onions.
http://www.recreationns.ns.ca/files/let%20us%20play%20flyer.pdf
http://www.hollycarr.com/
http://www.mermaidtheatre.ns.ca/

Childhood Obesity
See March 2008 entry in latest news.
http://cdpac.ca/content.php?doc=107

Children’s Rights.
If You Could Wear My Sneakers is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child

Domestic Violence/Spousal Abuse
The first suite of poems in the collection In This House Are Many Women are the voices of women in a shelter for women and children. Eastern Front Theatre commissioned a play based on these poems. Like A Littlle Candle was produced in Halifax in February 1996.
http://gooselane.com/gooselaneeditions/?page_id=2

Learning Differences/ Variations
The book Pocket Rocks is a story about Ian Goobie, a boy who encounters challenges in school. I wrote it for a keynote for Learning Disabilities Association in Canada—a speech I never got to make. We had just moved to Washington and the airport was still closed due to September 11th. It took several months before I found the courage to fly again. The book, however, did fly—thanks to Orca and Helen Flooke.
http://www.ldac-taac.ca/History/history-e.asp

Literacy
NB Literacy Coalition –Honorary Spokesperson.
http://www.nb.literacy.ca/awards/shrfitch.htm

Nova Scotia Read to Me – Honorary Spokesperson
http://readtome.ca/

Turning the Page
http://www.turningthepage.org/

Somebody’s Daughter
A land based literacy program in Nunavut started by Bernadette Dean. This is a link to an article on Somebody’s Daughter written by Margaret Atwood for Unesco.
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/files/53836/11889095405atwood.pdf/atwood.pdf

Mental Health and Addiction
Every Body’s Different on Everybody Street written as a fundraiser and to raise awareness for Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia.
http://www.mentalhealthns.ca/

Global Education See March 2008 news.
http://www.freethechildren.com/index.php

Youth Writing
http://www.umce.ca/wfnb/litcomp.htm