The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

economist sunsuntribune learning saturday april 29 2006 11 ill tp stephanie mak left and partner pauline zhang of milliken mills public school perform for an adjudicator at christ church anglican in stouffviue monday alive with the sound of music staff photossteve somerville adjudicator david ford leads milliken mills public schools string ensemble during the music alive 2006 festival put on by artslink a nonprofit york region organization musicians are judged but the event is noncompetitive the sixweek festival ends may 4 women turned away from fork shelters bv caroline grech staff writer you have finally made the decision to leave an abusive relationship and have even called a local shelter only to find there is no space itskappeningtovat least one yorfckegion woman a week andwitlva growing population shelter staff fear it will only get worse over the last six months weve exceeded our occu pancy rates and often sandgate in georginais full as well said yellow brick house executive director lorris herenda sandgate womens shelter of georgina has about 30 beds with onlytvvo shelters to serve women in a region of 900000 shelter staff are often forced to refer victims to toronto were in dire need ms herenda said relocating a woman to another area comes with a new set of problems howev er when a woman is asked to leave an area she is famil iar with some of them choose to stay in their situa tion until a bed- becomes available ms herenda explained adding staff always explain the risks of staying in an abusive situation yellow brick house in aurora which has 21 beds receives about 40 crisis calls a day it usually takes about four phone calls before a woman decides to take refuge in a shelter ms heren da said thegrowingpopuiationis just one of the factors con tributing to more women using the shelter ms heren da said another factor is a grow ing awareness of the help available to victims of abuse women new to the coun try are also finding out yellow fbrick house which adds to the pressure to provide more beds we are able to educate them in their own language and let them know there is help out there ms herenda said over the last six months weve exceeded our occupancy rates and often sandgate in georgina is full as well r the ministry of gommui nity family and childrens services determines funding based on current population and the projected female population ministry spokesperson paul doig said the rural population in a region is also considered when decisions on funding are made although more cash from the government is needed the united way of york region just announced 457000 to go to shelters for abused women in the region the money will go to pro grams at the sandgate shel ter preventative programs to educate women about abuse childrens programs at yellow brick house art associates s with randa pufeiie sotaoi planting garden walmart associates from markham are setting out to support earth day by planting donating supplies to randall public school for their front gardens local wal- mart store associates took part in the activities april 21 2006 they were joined in their efforts by students in the school earth day is held each year on april 22 to promote environmental awareness globally in over 1 80 countries each year earth day activities take place at walmart stores across the country and are an important part of walmart canadas commitment to our environment says michelle osborne store manager of the markham walmart here locally were proud to participate in activities that enhance the communi ty where we live and work walmart canada is an active partner to various charities community groups primarily focused on childrens health education canadian causeslike the environment for the past two years walmart canada has partnered with evergreen to fund wal- marts green grants an environmental revitalization project with a donation of 300000 each year to fund green grants the program provides funding to communitybased organizations across the country to restore key urban habitats such as woodlands mead ows wetlands and ravines established in 1994 headquartered in mississauga walmart canada operates one of the strongest community involvement programs in canada under the walmart good works banner every week walmart canada raises donates more than 190000 to canadian charities last year alone contributed close to 10 million to causes across canada over the past 11 years the company has contributed more than 50 million to canadian charities and organizations in need