Thirty five years ago the Boyle McCauley News was born. Kate Quinn recalls that the Medical Mission Sisters had a role in the creation of BMC News because they were doing community animation work to help the community articulate needs and priorities. “One purpose was to communicate and build community support for the development of a community health centre,” she explains. Another purpose, “was to link diverse communities within the neighbourhood by telling good news stories and helping people see what they had in common while celebrating diversity at the same time.”

As Bob McKeon said, “The larger media love to talk about our neighbourhood but often with stereotypes and its most dramatically worse face – there is a more subtle sense of community, relationships, and accomplishments that are worth telling locally but not as a city wide story. Paradox, humour, stories of individual people doing something locally – it has usually looked for positive stories where most people in the city think of the neighbourhood in negative terms.”    

The people who have lived and worked in this neighbourhood over the past 35 years have never turned their backs on the issues that plague our society. Indeed, many of the people who have raised their children here and volunteered thousands of hours to provide programs for all residents of this community frequently work in the organizations that try to solve the problems of poverty, homelessness, mental illness, addictions, and crime. 

If one pays attention to the mainstream media one recognizes that there are many bad things reported. Other newspapers and television stations are more than willing to report on crime and the terrible things that happen in our community. For many of us, the good stories are news. Don’t ever think that people who focus on the positive ignore the negative. We simply do not give power to the negative by focusing on it incessantly. 

Our paper was started to encourage and nurture our sense of community. We will continue to do that for as long as we can. There are diverse voices, opinions, and needs in our neighbourhood.  With respect and care and concern we can make this a better place every year.

Colleen is a resident of McCauley.