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Introducing the 2005/2006 Making A Difference Award Winners
And the winner is…
By Katherine Romain and Gail Moore
Every year at the Annual General Meeting and Conference, we honour those who go above and beyond to make a difference in the multiple-birth community. This year, the Making A Difference Awards (MADA) recognition dinner was held on Saturday, May 27th in Chatham, Ontario. The following information is presented in two parts. Part 1 is presented by Katherine Romain, MADA Chairperson, and Part 2 is presented by Gail Moore, MBC Director of Communications.
Part 1
Firstly, I would like to thank the other members of the MADA Committee: Allison Cheron from Durham Region POMBA, Lynn Stadler-Hawkins from Guelph POTTC and Lori MacEwen from Temiskaming MB. Secondly, I wanted to let you know that this will be my last year as Chair of the MADA Committee and that Lynn has generously agreed to take on this important role.
The MADA awards were created in 1999 in memory of POMBA Canada’s founder, Sheryl McInnes. MBC’s mission statement is “to improve the quality of life for multiple-birth individuals and their families in Canada”. These awards were established to acknowledge those individuals who exemplify this statement at many levels. All MBC members were called upon to nominate individuals deserving of this distinction. Thank you to everyone who sent in nominations, and I would also like to encourage everyone to take a few minutes and nominate someone next year!
International Category
On behalf of the committee and Multiple Births Canada, I would like to congratulate Nancy Segal on winning in the International Category.
Dr. Nancy Segal is a distinguished Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University. She is one of the world's leading researchers on twins and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She was formerly a contributing research editor for Twins magazine, and is a member of the advisory board of the Center for Loss in Multiple Birth and Twins Foundation. Nancy is the author of Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us about Human Behavior. She is a longtime friend of MBC and was the Keynote Speaker at the MBC 2002 AGM and Conference hosted by Durham Region POMBA. Nancy has a vested interest in twin studies, as she is a twin herself.
Nancy was notified of her win and sent the following comments:
It is truly a pleasure and a privilege to have been honored with the Making a Difference Award from Multiple Births Canada. Twins and other multiples are important people, both for the scientific insights they provide and for the parenting challenges they present. You and your families have been so gracious in supporting my efforts in these areas. I look forward to many more contacts in the future.
National Category
Our winner in the National Category is someone everyone in any way affiliated with MBC knows of; if you don’t know her well, you need to take some time to get to know her. She is an incredibly dedicated and caring person and pleasure to know. Our winner in the national category is the Chair of MBC - Kim Weatherall!
Kim and her husband Steve live in the Ottawa area with their monozygotic twin daughters Kristin and Stephanie, who will be 19 years old in July, and who are both attending Carleton University. Kim is a strong believer in volunteering. Not only in how you can and should give back to your community, but also in how we should be passing this tradition on to our children and our children's children. It is never too late to start volunteering, and never too early to start. Kim's volunteering within the multiple-birth community started almost 20 years ago when she started helping at her local Ottawa area club. Kim has helped in many positions over the years, and eventually started to volunteer at the national level. Those that work with Kim on a daily basis know that she lives and breathes MBC. She's a leader that not only leads, but rolls up her sleeves and sets the barometer for dedication. She always has MBC in her thoughts; whether she is taking university courses to increase her knowledge of not-for-profit organizations and how they operate, or buying a lottery ticket and promising to quit her job and volunteer full-time for MBC if she wins. It takes a lot of volunteers with heart to run a national organization, but it only takes one exceptional person like Kim Weatherall to make those hearts beat as one. Congratulations Kim!
A few words from Kim:
I am very honored to have been chosen as this year’s winner in the National Category, and would like to express my sincerest appreciation to those who have nominated me. Making a difference in someone’s life has been a personal goal of mine long before I was blessed with multiple-birth children. I have vivid memories as a teen declaring that if I could do nothing else with my life, I wanted to make a difference in one person’s life before I die—never guessing at that time what that personal goal would mean in the years to follow! That it would become a passion, almost an obsession, or that it would lead to such a large involvement in the multiple-birth community and many special friendships over the years. It is not difficult to be passionate about an organization that has at the heart of its work our children and the well-being of our families. Knowing that the work I do today will make a difference to the lives of future generations, potentially for my own grandchildren and their families, drives me to work harder to make the necessary changes in people’s perceptions and behaviours with regards to multiples. Having my efforts recognized with this award also recognizes the efforts, passion and dedication of the amazing team who work alongside me each and every day. To be recognized for doing something that I love—volunteering for MBC—truly makes this award all that more special to me.
Local Category
Our winner in the local category is someone who received several nominations this year (only 7 nominations in total were received in this category)! She is exceptional for many reasons. When she moved to a new area with very young twins and a singleton she contacted her local club right away to see how she could help—this is incredibly rare as most people wait to be asked to help. She has been running events, fostering friendships and coming up with new innovative ideas to enhance and strengthen her club for several years. But there is another reason she is so exceptional, and that is her desire to help other clubs in the same way! To my knowledge, there has never been a nomination at the local level which has come from someone belonging to a different club in a different province! The committee was very moved by this nomination, as well as the incredible nominations from her club. We knew this must be a truly amazing person!
And she is, our winner in the local category, Shelly Blizzard-Jones. In addition, Shelly also volunteers at the national level. Shelly has a globe-trotting husband named Bill and is mom to three beautiful children – Gareth, Clair and Owen. Congratulations Shelly!
A few words from Shelly:
I would like to say a big "Thank You" to the individuals who nominated me for the MADA award. I was very surprised and truly touched by the nominations. Thank you also to the MADA committee who puts in a great effort to sort through the nominations, and who has the very difficult task of deciding on just one recipient per category each year. The MADA award is a wonderful recognition of volunteer work and an honour to receive. Every time I see my beautiful plaque it's like getting a big hug from fellow MOMs.
Part 2
Dionne Award (Adult Multiples)
Last year, MBC held its first annual National Multiple Births Awareness Day. We chose May 28th—the birth date of the Dionne Quintuplets—as the day Canada’s multiple-birth community draws attention to multiple-birth issues. During the inaugural ceremony, on the picnic grounds of the Dionne Quints Museum, MBC unveiled a new Making A Difference Award. We called it the Dionne Award! MBC created this award because we believe there are many adult multiple-birth individuals who, through their actions have created a deeper awareness of the challenges faced by Canada’s multiple-birth children and their families and/or have made a significant impact on the multiple-birth community through their own personal efforts.
This year we’d like to recognize and present the Dionne Award to Dr. Louis Keith and Donald Keith of Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Louis Keith is a Medical Doctor, a  Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University. He and his monozygotic (identical) twin brother, Donald Keith founded The Center for the Study of Multiple Birth in 1977. The Center is a nonprofit organization and was created for three primary reasons—research, education, and public service. During the past 29 years, Donald and Louis have published over 150 articles, held over 100 speaking engagements and have authored or co-authored numerous documents and books relating to multiple births.
Other past accomplishments include the role of Co-Presidents of the International Society for Twin Studies. Louis and Donald were also a driving force behind the Annual Twinsburg Ohio twin festival.
Louis and Donald are long time friends of  MBC. In fact, Louis has participated in a number of conferences at his own expense. Louis is also an MBC Advisory Board member. As such, he has always been there for MBC when we needed him.
We are truly fortunate to have Louis and Donald actively creating a deeper awareness of the challenges faced by Canada’s multiple-birth children and their families. They have truly made a significant impact on the multiple-birth community through their own personal efforts.
For these reasons, MBC proudly presented Donald Keith and Louis Keith with the 2006 Dionne Award. Louis accepted the awards in person, and on his brother's behalf, after his Keynote Address on May 27th.
Media Award
A journalist combines a sense of curiosity, civic concern, idealism, a love of words, and a craftsman's attention to detail in trying to chronicle human activity in the everyday world. From the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada comes this definition: broadcast journalists inform the public in an accurate, comprehensive and fair manner about events and issues of importance.
Launching National Multiple Births Awareness Day last year was an important event for Canada’s multiple-birth community. As Chapters coast-to-coast celebrated the day with over a dozen events in as many communities, broadcast and print journalists listened to our story. In 2005, when MBC and its Chapters sent out a “Call to Dialogue regarding the current distribution of maternity and parental benefits for multiple-birth families” many media outlets joined in that discussion.
In recognition of the attention given to this issue and other multiple-birth challenges, MBC created the new Media Award. It will now be presented annually to an individual and/or newspaper, magazine, radio or television outlet that printed or aired a story over the last year, which created a stronger awareness of multiple-birth issues, individual chapters, or spotlighted MBC and/or chapter initiatives in Canada.
The first ever Media Award goes to Canada’s national public broadcaster—CBC Radio. In May 2005, CBC’s Kathy Stackleburg called us in Mattawa to get the story. She interviewed both Cheryl Wadasinghe and myself from CBC’s Sudbury newsroom. That story was broadcast on CBC’s regional and national news. The topic was well received. Consequently, CBC Radio interviewed other MBC members, resulting in additional coverage in many cities including Thunder Bay, Windsor, Ottawa, Saskatoon and Vancouver.
As one nominator stated, “CBC Radio allowed MBC to tell the whole story. They layered the interview, allowing us to explain:
- the challenges faced by new parents of multiples;
- the inability to bond until the babies are older;
- the fact that some multiple-birth parents have shorter maternity and parental leaves because of needing bed-rest in the latter stages of pregnancy; and
- the reality that some countries already have provisions for multiple-birth families built into their maternity benefits.”
We thank CBC Radio for allowing us the time to tell our story. Canada’s multiple-birth community is grateful that CBC Radio and its broadcast journalists informed the public in an accurate, comprehensive and fair manner about events and issues of importance. And, we thank Janice Stein, Station Manager at CBC Radio One 1550 in Windsor for attending the MADA recognition dinner in Chatham to accept this award on behalf of her organization.
Please take a moment next year to nominate someone. We all have strengths and together we all make a difference. Once again, thank you to everyone from the nominators to the nominees and all those who make a difference.
MBC would like to thank Katherine Romain for her hard work and dedication over the last three years as Chair of the Making A Difference Awards Committee. A Making a Difference Award winner herself, Katherine has felt firsthand what the recognition of one's volunteer work can mean, and has ensured that all those who have been nominated or received awards have been given the recognition that they so deserve. Katherine will be missed in this role, but we know that she will be continuing to make a difference in the Durham community with her own chapter. Thank you Katherine!
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