So it has been a few weeks now since June Callwood died. A most remarkable of Canadian lives she lived and lived to its fullest. Many words have been said about her passing.

I remember when working with a NGO how I would craft the public service announcements each year that she would record as our volunteer spokesperson. Always without fail she would send me a kind note of encouragement after recording these spots. Her thoughtfulness always surprised me though… even now many years later I remain touched by her compassion for others in the smallest of things.

So when reading Peter C. Newman’s Macleans tribute to June, I thought it summed up the impact she had on so many of us when he cited a passage from Anne Dublin’s biography of June, “She sees the good things people do, however small, instead of being consumed by the bad stuff that can be ragingly conspicuous. By embracing the good, she finds the passion she needs to fight for it.”

Time and time again in the interviewing anti-poverty activists at the recent Global Call to Action Against Poverty international conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, each person when asked why they continue the complex and hard fight against global poverty the resounding reply was “I believe that we can create a just world.” I have to say I think June would have fit right into this crowd of 130 people from 88 countries from around the world.

Peter C. Newman’s article concluded, “Each person is like a stone,” June observed near the end of her life. “Individual actions, good or bad, send out tiny ripples that change the surface of the public pond. People, by choice, can spread warm understanding or cold indifference.”
Newman concludes, “Her choice was crystal clear.”

I think June’s legacy somehow was present at the recent GCAP conference as plans were being shaped to mobilize millions around the world to stand up to Make Poverty History.

A life lived like June’s remains alive in our collective rippling actions of “warm understanding and not cold indifference.”