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Leafs fan, 88, enjoys games despite Alzheimer’s Longtime Scarborough resident June Rogers first bought Toronto Maple Leafs season tickets in 1946 and has been a fan since. She purchased the tickets for 25 cents each from Red Horner, the defenceman who helped the Leafs win their first Stanley Cup in 1932. Though Rogers, 88, is now in the final stage of Alzheimer’s, she still enjoys the game. She’s been a Leafs season seat holder for more than 65 years. About five weeks ago, Rogers’ granddaughter Jennifer entered Sportsnet’s Ultimate Sports Fan contest on her grandmother’s behalf. Jennifer is now one of seven finalists and is reaching out for votes. “My mother and I care for her (Rogers) full time so I really wanted to make
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June’s Scarborough house has been decorated in Leafs’ colours. Jennifer Rogers, who is June’s granddaughter and one of her fulltime caregivers, says: “We decorated our whole home in blue and white Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s a signature she (Rogers) identifies with right away, so that’s how she knows she’s home: when she gets to the blue and white house with all the Leafs stuff.”
or sitting up in her chair.” The contest ends Friday, Dec. 6; the winner receives $10,000. House decorated
Longtime Scarborough resident June Rogers first bought Toronto Maple Leafs tickets in 1946.
her have...a legacy shall we say,” Jennifer said. “With the Alzheimer’s she’s not coherent a lot of the time, but when the hockey comes on, she’ll recognize Don Cherry or if we say he shoots, he scores, she’ll start clapping
“We decorated our whole home in blue and white Toronto Maple Leafs,” Jennifer said. “It’s a signature she (Rogers) identifies with right away, so that’s how she knows she’s home: when she gets to the blue and white house with all the Leafs stuff.” Because of her condition, Rogers can’t go to live games anymore. But she watches them while tucked in her Maple Leafs blanket. “We’ve had to buy bigger TVs so she feels like she’s really in that arena,” Jennifer said.
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To vote in the contest, visit www.greatestfan.sportsnet.ca
Working together to provide local affordable housing At a glance, 8 Chichester Place in Scarborough is a building that looks like many others in Toronto. In a city where many rental apartment towers, particularly for seniors and low-income tenants, are aging and in need of repairs, the highrise for tenants who are both, east of Victoria Park Avenue, is spotless and new. By the front door is a visual intercom along with a flashing strobe light to show the door lock has been released. One of a kind, the system works both ways between the lobby and 21 apartments in the 210-unit building. It is for deaf tenants who, signalled by a strobe or flashing light, can go to the screen, see who is calling and communicate in sign language. The partnership which built the recently-completed tower is a
2nd Annual Food & Clothing Drive November 25 December 21, 2013 Donated items accepted at dealership. Full details available at www.agincourthyundai.ca
rarity too, in a city where 90,000 “households” (a term that includes whole families as well as individuals) are on waiting lists for affordable housing. Tenants in the new building can’t make more than four times their monthly rent. The Remington Group, which also owns the apartment tower next door and severed land for the new building, rebuilt the parking garage for both highrises and received $25.2 million from the federal and provincial government funds for 8 Chichester, plus $3 million from the city. There was much talk at the recent opening ceremony for the building that it shows the benefits coming from three levels of government working together. People see conflict between Canada’s governments but those “governments, on a daily basis, deliver good things,” Toronto Deputy
Staff photo/DAN PEARCE
Resident Carole Craig speaks about her experience at an affordable housing project on Chichester Place.
Mayor Norm Kelly said, describing the building as the first in what will be “the last community in this part of Toronto,” the Sheppard Avenue corridor east of Victoria Park. The city hopes to build 1,000 new affordable units a year, and to put
together a 10-year plan with those other governments to handle the “heavy demand” for such units, Kelly said. With federal support, the province is adding $500 million more across Ontario for affordable housing over the next four years, said Scarborough-Agincourt MPP Soo Wong, who nonetheless called upon the federal Conservative government to provide longer term sustainable funding to Ontario. “It’s remarkable, what we’ve achieved to date, and moving forward, we want more,” she said. Derek Rumball, a director of North York’s Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf, which chose the building’s deaf tenants from among its clients, gave Remington credit for approaching the organization and listening to what its supporters said they needed. “It puts a little faith back into humanity,” Rumball said during
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the ceremony, later adding the need for such housing in the deaf community is “huge.” The building is “one of the first times an established developer has come to us with a gift,” he said. Carole Craig, a nor theast Scarborough resident for more than 30 years, moved into it in April. It’s environmentally friendly, she said, in that a geothermal system uses the constant temperature of air below the foundations to reduce the need for heat in winter and cooling in summer. The building is within walking distance of banks, a drug store, restaurants and TTC routes - all of which are important for seniors, said Craig. But as she congratulated them on a job well done, Craig pointed out affordable housing waiting lists for seniors can be seven or eight years long, so more rental housing like 8 Chichester is needed.
On selected models
SELLING PRICE: $14,835◆
HWY: 5.3L/100 KM
GLS model shown Inventory is limited. CITY: 7.1L/100 KM Financial Services based on a new 2013 Accent 5 Door L 6-Speed Manual with an annual finance rate of 0% for 96 months. Bi-weekly payments are $71. $0 down payment required. Cost of Borrowing is $0. Finance offers include Delivery and Destination of $1,550, fees, levies, and all applicable charges (excluding HST). Price adjustment applied before taxes.
2730 Markham Road
(One traffic light North of Finch)
416-291-2929 • www.agincourthyundai.ca
Hwy 407 Steeles Ave. E Finch
Hwy 401
Markham Rd.
MIKE ADLER madler@insidetoronto.com
| SCARBOROUGH MIRROR | Thursday, December 5, 2013
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