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reat Dee TT om x ree oar A anti Ret KS pha ih a AAR fo Sc VE in hh at de 8 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, October 30, 1990 Proud of young people LE€TTETrS to the editor To the Editor: I feel compelled to write and publicly praise the young people of our community. Too often we adults do not acknowledge the good that the youth do for us. It is unfortunate that they can- not be nominated as a group for a Junior Citizens award but some are over the age limit. This past year, the young people of Port Please recycle this newspaper Perry have raised a tremendous amount of money and donated it to local charities in our son's memory. I feel very honoured to have had the pleasure of knowing so many fine young people. Port Perry, be proud of your young adults. Listen to their laughter, sometimes boisterous yelling and sometimes loud music and let it all be music to your . ears. When you don't have this, the silence can be deafening! Young people of this communi- ty, I am proud of you all. Keep up the good work. Sincerely, J. Short, Port Perry, Ont. No need to shoot the messenger From Page 7 meone volunteered to pick them up and drop them for recycling, I volunteered to do it. Luckily, this was only necessary for one school year. It was a little over a year ago now that I decided to become in- volved in environmental issues in general and garbage in particular in a bigger way. As a homemaker with two kids in school full-time, I had the time to devote to in- volvement in the Public Liaison Committee for Durham's Waste Management Master Plan, a volunteer job as Recycling Week Life's Like That by Julia Ashton While one mother's nightmare ends, an- other's cumulates into the worst possible sce- nario. - Such is the case with Janet Cipryk and Ruth Windebank. Ms. Cipryk's nightmare began in April when her four-year-old son Luke didn't return from a court-ordered visit with his father. After six months of intensive searching, a tip lead police . and Ms. Cipryk to her son -- in Honolulu. But as Ms. Cipryk was rejoicing with her son back home in Milton, Ms. Windebank was re- ceiving news that a body found in the apartment building where she lives is probably that of her daughter, Andrea Atkinson, who had been missing for 10 days. For a week-and-a-half, the six-year-old flax- en-haired girl with the toothy grin had been smiling out at people from the front pages of Metro dailies. According to reports in those pa- pers and television newscasts, Andrea was re- ported missing when she failed to return home from a friend's place. And then came the gruesome discovery of Andrea's lifeless body in a utility room in the tower of the apartment building that she called home. As | write this, police are not confirming that she was mutilated in any way, but are say- ing that foul play was involved. The case raises hundreds of questions. Who could harm a young, defenceless child? Was the person a stranger or did Andrea know her assailant? Was her lifeless body dumped in the tower room days after her disappearance? If not, why wasn't she found earlier during one of the several police checks of the building? Who had access to the room and are there more than seven master keys to the building? | could fili the rest of this column by listing question after question but dwelving on this par- ticular case was not my initial intent. If you read the newspapers last week, you would of learned about several other uc- tions and near abductions. Crimes against the children of our society are on a rapid increase. Yet they are a sector of our population that are least able to help themselves because of their physical size. And quite often they don't even realize they are in jeopardy. Children are naive and trustworthy. The sick and demented people of this planet use those traits to their advantage. And last week, during National Child Safety Week, the best promotion of why we should teach our youngster some very important life skills was all too obvious in the daily headlines. It's no wonder that in today's school structure children are learning more than reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. If the school that you child attends is discuss- ing the Stay Alert...Stay" Safe program, be thankful. It just may save their life. And if they are, do remedial work on it at home. Constant exposure is necessary because children some- times have short memories. If your child's school is not talking about Stay Alert...Stay Safe, then request that they do. The goal of the program is to make children more aware of the potential problems by teach- ing them to identify and aviod trouble situations. It is designed to encourage kids to use safety tips as second nature. The concept of the program was established in 1987 through the combined efforts of Lesley Parrott, Janet Jessop and Carole Cameron. If their last names sound familiar, it's because their children were murdered. After three years in the planning, researching and writing stages, the group has now put to- gother a brochure in the form of a comic book. he heros of the book are Bert and Gert -- twin rabbits -- who give sensible and easy to under- stand advice for kids. The 12-page book talks about what to do when a stranger approaches, setting out specif- ic school routes and what to do if someone touches the child where they don't like to be touched. For a copy of this invaluable brochure, write Stay Alert...Stay Safe, 2180 Yonge Street, 8th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2V8 or pick up a mini pamphlet at any Canadian Tire dealership. For Better or For Worse® TOLD ME YOoUD BE | WAS SO WORRIED, | HoMe BY MIDNIGHT,AND | THOUSBHT YOU'D BEEN IN ITS ONE OCLOCK INTHE THING | --THE.LEAST , 7) WAS CALL JN i dl by Lynn Johnston 1989 Coordinator for Scugog Township, and the Environment column in the Port Perry Star. One thing led to another, and I wound up being invited to speak to community groups about the environment, although public speaking was certainly not something I ever set out to do! Between February and the end of June 1 spoke to ten different com- munity groups about the environ- ment generally and reducing gar- bage specifically. I also continued with numerous other volunteer commitments unrelated to the en- vironment. With no budget for the Environment Week activities I organized in June of this year, I used my own money for the ex- penses incurred. When this fall arrived, I had already committed myself to be- ing volunteer Recycling Week Coordinator again, and had made yet another attempt (my third) to get a local environmental group going. As on previous occasion, there were very few takers. Then, and unhappily as it seems to have turned out, I volunteered to ac- company a Regional Works staff person on the visits to landowners on the site areas named by MacLaren Engineers. Needless to say, I didn't know a year ago when I joined the P.L.C. or a month or so ago when I volunteered for this, that two areas in Scugog Township would be named. Only hindsight is 20-20! But I would like to say here that I stand behind everything I have done with and for the P.L.C. I do feel I've done about as much as one individual can in the past year or so to inform local people about the environment and about garbage, and since it has all been done on a volunteer basis, I don't consider my motives too selfish. What I feel I see happen- ing now is a case of the age-old practice of "shooting the messanger." I had no input into the choice of the candidate areas, and I have no power whatsoever to affect the final decisions made. My role in this process is purely as a liaison person between the public on the one hand, and Durham Region and MacLaren Engineers on the other. I consider myself to be very much a part of this war on garbage that I have been encouraging everyone else to take part in for the past year. I've made a lot of contacts with people of similar interests in this year, and am in a good position to share what I've learned. I have already contacted Zero Garbage chairman Bill Lishman once to pass along information about con- ferences and groups he may be in- terested in, and I plan to do so again. It would be awfully easy for all of us to continue indulging in pet- ty animosities over events that none of us can change now, but I fail to see the point in it. Let's not do like the women who have been shooting themselves in the foot for over a decade with endless bickering between the ones who "work" and the ones who "stay home." There are much larger battles to be fought, both for women and for the planet, and I think we should all take care to direct our energies where they will be most effective. As the old saying goes, "United we stand, divided we fall."' It expresses a sentiment I believe we will all need to keep in our minds over the next several years if we decide, along with David Suzuki, that "going to war to save this planet" is something we have to do. Let's stop taking potshots at one another and get down to the real work at hand. There's more than enough of it to keep every single one of us busy for a long time to come! Sincerely, Janet Banting, Greenbank, Ontario. Potential lake damage To the Editor: This letter is in response to Mr. Glen H. Larmer's excellent letter to the Star Tuesday, October 16th regarding the two proposed dump sites in Cartwright Township. Has McLaren Engineering done environment assessment studies re the effects of a dumpsite close to Lake Scugog which feeds into the Scugog River and eventually the whole Kawartha Lake System. Have other dumpsites of this potential magnitude been located near a fresh water lake in Canada or the United States? What were the consequences and sacrifices? Perhaps a short history of Lake Scugog and the Scugog River could be sent to the Ministers of the Environment and Natural Resources, outlining their positive uses. Lake Scugog is one of the most productive fresh water lakes for fishing in southern Ontario. The marsh areas along the Scugog River are an excellent habitant for resident and migratory birds. As well, Lake Scugog provides swimming, boating and picnic areas for residents and visitors from Metro Toronto, Whitby, Ajax, Oshawa, etc. If it could be proven that Lake Scugog would be seriously damaged then all of the residents and cottagers for many miles would be affected and they would join in the fight against these two potential dumpsites. Yours truly, Barbara Renwick, Cottager, Lake Scugog rg )) On by v OL ©1990 MILLER FEATURES < 1390 Universal Press Svnaicate IT8 A LITTLE BITTER, ) .. A TASTE OF OUR ISNT IT, A hen on tae NM you / ner 7?) 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