l 1:1“: lililni. 1,!†it \‘iloll‘llill‘ int-slum millili‘lll '.“llglVIrlit'lll-lu lu', Wan-null ‘lt'l‘,‘llld'llli' l-t-mlullmh win .l,l.|Lr.s:, lib, .' Inside: FWIO Mailbag .. Z Caring 84 Sharing . 3 Board Briefings . . . . , 4-5 Conference '98. . , , . . , 6 The no Line r . , , . i . 7 Resolutions . . . . . . 8 Lee Curator , 9 Literacy . . . . D Twinning Program . , . 11 SurveyResulIs. .. 12 Kemble WI . , . . 13 Cross Country Calendar 14-15 ForVourlnformation .. . 16 Regional Profile: Southern Blazing a Trail of Ivy f you ask Ivy Johnson what the key to her long and fortunate exâ€" istence has been, the Brantford resident is quick to point out that she’s had a lot of help along the way. “I guess I’ve learned a lot along the way. I‘ m a dreamer and I like to keep busy..., the two have always seemed to work hand in hand," says Ivy. Ivy came to Canada in 1946 from England with her husband Len. A few years later they settled in Brantford', Len took an engineeringjob with West- inghouse As a result of her love for the community. combined with a natural penchant for helping oth- ers, Ivy began building a name for herself. Ivy is well known for her local work with the Women's Institute, senior citizens, Master Gardenâ€" ers and the St, Pauls Branch Library, She is a charter member of the local branch of the Raging Grannies. She has also been recognized for her extensive in volvement with national groups. such as the Cystic Fibrosis Association and the Canadian Hearing Society. She was. in fact, cited for her help in starting the ï¬rst Cystic Fibrosis chapter in Canada. Her efforts in all of these projects recently earned Ivy a Governor General's Caring Canadian Award Because of her husband's industrial deafness and her exposure to the hard<ofahearing in nursing homes, Ivy began to campaign for more awareness about the problem. She is now working on a project to gain widespread distribution of stamps with the hard-of-hearing symbol on them. For Ivy. the greatest reward comes from the act of volunteering itself. The recognition is nice, she says, but volunteering reaps its own beneï¬ts. Extracted from an article by Claude/IE Boudreau in the March 1998 edition of The Brandord Expositor. Photo courtesy of The Brantfmd Expositor. Do you know what this symbol stands for? The symbol shows a white ear with a white diagonal line through it on a blue background, This universal sign is the symbol for the "Hard-of-Hearing." Ivy Johnson‘s husband, Len, has been hard-ofâ€"hearing forthe last fifteen years, the result of working in industry all his life. Ivy had worked in a large nursing home-apartment complex with many deaf-handicapped people, but until she lived with the problem in her own family, she did not realize how the quality of life for the hard-of-hearing was affected. For the past several years, Ivy has cru- saded to improve the quality of life for the hearing handicapped She did this by encouraging Brantford and area hard of hearing residents to use the Blue Stamp. The idea is to place this small Blue "Hard- of-Hearing†Stamp on an individual's documents, such as bank books, per sonal identification and medical records. Continued on page 2