Spoons aloft at Soup Ottawa’s recent fundraiser.
This edition of Midweek ran the full scope of topics — from soup to…well…check it out.
Hosted by Hunza Chaudhary and Alex Kurial, the show opened with Molly Pendergast’s documentary on the work of Soup Ottawa and how it’s taking a micro-funding approach to supporting worthy local causes — and bring varied sides of the community together.
Good for the innards, good for the causes, too.
Members of this community also came together at the Human Rights Monument in downtown Ottawa to mourn those killed at the synagogue in Pittsburgh and to stand up against anti-Semitism and white supremacy; Hunza covered that for us.
Communities west of Ontario learned Greyhound Canada will no longer be running buses out their way, and Midweek’s Madeline Lines reported on how this causes particular worries for those running women’s shelters, trying to give abused women an escape route out of troubled lives.
Raisa Patel introduced us to two Ojibway women who are pushing for an Indigenous elementary school for Ottawa, and we also heard about efforts to help the disproportionately large portion of Ottawa’s homeless who are Indigenous people.
Since the day was Halloween, we learned about how zombies (temporarily) took over a Cold War-era nuclear blast shelter outside the capital, the fate of women in horror films (on screen and behind the scenes), how the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s traditions are kept alive in Ottawa, and the tricks one 11-year-old girl with diabetes has for having her treats and keeping her health.
Hosts Hunza Chaudhary and Alex Kurial
We also heard about a proposal for breathing new life into the ByWard Market, the return of funkalicious music, and the ways some Canadian airlines are joining the fight to save whales and dolphins from captivity.
Speaking of endangered species, Midweek’s Kiera Kowalski took us into the newsroom of an independent small-town newspaper — The Fort Francis Times — to meet the family that’s spent their lifetimes trying to keep it alive. And closer to home, we also spoke with the station manager at CKCU-FM, Midweek’s host broadcaster, about the importance of the station’s current funding drive.
(By the way, regardless of when you’re reading this, even if the funding drive is long over, you can still donate to this very worthy enterprise; just click here.)
And to close (as opposed to clothes) the show, reporter Adam van der Zwan took us to a local fiction reading where we met a local man coming to terms with his anxieties and body image issues by reading aloud to an audience…naked.
Yup: A Midweek to remember!