Media coverage 2007

Sharing the light (24 Hours pdf 129 KB) Calendar captures spirit of DTES (24 Hours pdf 261 KB) Beauty and the Downtown Eastside (Metro pdf 190 KB) Calendar seller finds his niche (Vancouver Sun - pdf 179 KB - also reproduced below) Ten-year-old wins Downtoan Eastside photo contest (Vancouver Courier pdf 184 KB)

IMAGES OF DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE LIKE A 'RAY OF SUNSHINE':

Calendar seller finds his niche

Read original article on the Vancouver Sun website here

Stephen Kinnis sells a calendar to Erin McCoy outside the Commercial Drive SkyTrain station. Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - Only a year ago, Stephen Kinnis was a down-and-out artist who couldn't hold a job and was on welfare.

But when Kinnis tried selling a calendar of images taken by Downtown Eastside residents last December, he rocketed to the top in the field, selling the most calendars of any of the area residents who tried. Now he's registered as a small business, is no longer on welfare, and is hoping to equal last year's success in his sales of this year's version of the Hope in the Shadows calendar.

"Some people say I just have a good attitude," said Kinnis, who can usually be found at Granville and Dunsmuir Streets, selling the calendar.

Run by Pivot Legal Society, the calendar program was set up to counter the image of the community presented by the news media, which often focus only on the street-level drug use and the poverty, said organizer Paul Ryan.

"They come, they shoot images of Hastings and Main," said Ryan. "We thought, let's invite local people to take photos of their community and how they see it in a positive way."

Since training began in October, about 180 salespeople have been given a starter calendar for free. They can sell it for $20, and reinvest that $20 to buy two more calendars at the distributor rate of $10 each. Once they sell those, they can return to restock again and again.

When Hope in the Shadows began about five years ago, Pivot printed about 1,500 calendars. Last year, 7,500 calendars were sold and the organization expects to sell out of its stock of 9,500 this year.

Half of the money goes into producing the calendars, and half toward the people who sell, said Ryan. Prizes are offered to the photographers as well, he said.

The winning photograph, of three girls on a street, was made by 11-year-old Mercy Walker, at her house across the street from Oppenheimer Park. "It's fun," said Mercy in an interview.

"Being downtown is a pretty rough place," said Edie Wild, whose photo of a cat in the window of a single-occupancy room won second prize in the contest. "But this is like a ray of sunshine. I feel like I've accomplished something down here."

Kinnis has registered himself as a small business selling calendars, paid taxes on his income, and has his sights set high for this year.

But his real goal would be to get a job in sales, he said. "I seem to have a knack for it."

jwoodward [at] png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007