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Description
Episode Summary
Most days, the news scrolls by faster than a Tim Hortons drive-thru—but every so often, a few stories remind us that goodness is still trending quietly, faithfully, one act at a time.
This week, Johan shares stories of neighbours whose small acts made a big impact:
00:55 The Interest Rate on Kindness Just Went Up
02:27 Waffling Her Way into Everyone’s Heart
4:40 Neighbourhood Watch | When Fences Make Good Neighbours—and Jackhammers Don’t
6:46 Knit Happens – How Port Stanley Painted the Town Red
From hidden cash to hand-stitched gratitude, these stories prove compassion is still Canada’s quiet superpower.
Sources
1️⃣ “‘Sharing the Wealth’ with Kindness Project” — by Christina Chkarboul, Newmarket Today, Sept. 23 2025
2️⃣ “Years of Kindness and Compassion Recognized” — by Amanda Jeffery, Drayton Valley and District Free Press, Oct. 9 2025
3️⃣ “Belching and Jackhammering ‘Bad Neighbour’ Earns Rebuke from B.C. Judge” — by Jason Proctor, CBC News, Aug. 14 2020
4️⃣ “How More Than 100 Volunteers Painted Port Stanley Red to Pay Respect to Veterans” — by Alessio Donnini, CBC News, Nov. 4 2025
Other Links
Join The CareImpact Podcast Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1PgzJWfkq9/
Reach out to us! https://neighbourlypodcast.ca
Email: podcast@careimpact.ca
About the CarePortal: careimpact.ca/careportal
DONATE! Help connect and equip more churches across Canada to effectively journey well in community with the most vulnerable: careimpact.ca/donate
Mentioned in this episode:
Skip The Dinner-Double Your Impact
Skip The Dinner is CareImpact’s year-end Christmas campaign, a fundraising non-event. You keep your time, and you give from wherever you are. Right now, every year-end gift or pledge is DOUBLED by a generous donor, so your giving goes twice as far to help strengthen CareImpact’s work with churches and community partners across Canada. Each donation will be matched before January 1, 2026.
Transcripts
These headlines point us back to what really matters. Ordinary
Speaker:neighbors showing extraordinary care. I'm Johan
Speaker:Heinrichs, and this is Neighbourly Headlines. Real stories of
Speaker:kindness, community and faith in action across Canada.
Speaker:Let's take a look at what's been happening close to home.
Speaker:Most days, the news scrolls by faster than a Tim Hortons drive
Speaker:thru at 8am but every so often, a few stories
Speaker:remind us that goodness is still trending
Speaker:quietly, faithfully, one act at a time.
Speaker:Let's get into our first story.
Speaker:The interest rate on kindness just went up. In
Speaker:Newmarket, Ontario, financial advisor Julianne Goyet
Speaker:decided to make generosity her business plan.
Speaker:Throughout September, she and her daughter tucked envelopes of cash around
Speaker:town, each one containing a note and a challenge
Speaker:to share the wealth. They left them in places
Speaker:like the public library, the laundromat and a local
Speaker:diner. No fine print, no tax form,
Speaker:just a simple invitation. Find the envelope. Do
Speaker:something kind. One envelope at Wimpy's diner came
Speaker:with $20 and a note encouraging a customer to bless their
Speaker:server. The result? A bigger tip and a few
Speaker:tears of joy. Now, some people say money talks,
Speaker:but in new market it whispers, pass it on.
Speaker:Julianne says we just need to be kind to everybody and bring our
Speaker:community together. And I think that's incredible. Not just because
Speaker:she's being generous, but because she was empowering others to be
Speaker:generous too. She didn't just give money, she gave people
Speaker:permission and resources to pass kindness along.
Speaker:There's at least a three way blessing happening here. The
Speaker:giver gets joy, the receiver gets to pour compassion on someone
Speaker:else, and the next person down the line gets hope.
Speaker:That's the kind of interest rate you won't find on a savings plan.
Speaker:A few dollars, a scrap of paper and a good idea. And suddenly
Speaker:a whole community is reminded that generosity doesn't deplete,
Speaker:it multiplies. Now for our next story,
Speaker:waffling her way into everybody's heart. Over in
Speaker:Alberta, Bharti Caluisa just received the province's
Speaker:Small Community Enhancement Award. A fancy way of saying
Speaker:you've been loving your neighbors really well for a very long time.
Speaker:For 35 years, she has been a volunteer
Speaker:educator, multicultural leader and a friend to seniors in
Speaker:Drayton Valley. When asked how she earned the award, she
Speaker:just smiled and said, just an act of kindness.
Speaker:Now, Barney doesn't just talk about kindness, she's got a recipe
Speaker:for it. Her metaphor is waffles. She says
Speaker:if you just add the right amount of baking powder, the whole thing
Speaker:rises beautifully. Too much and it's a Mess
Speaker:too little and it falls flat. In other words,
Speaker:balance your batter and your compassion. But she
Speaker:doesn't stop at the metaphor. She lives it out. She
Speaker:started a visiting program called Chit Chat with Bharti, where she
Speaker:spends time with seniors who don't have many visitors. She
Speaker:organizes chair yoga, whatever that is, help with
Speaker:groceries and laundry. And get this, she ends each visit with a
Speaker:small shoulder or hand massage just to remind people
Speaker:that someone cares. She even teaches kids and teens
Speaker:to write Christmas cards for seniors who have no family. She's
Speaker:basically running a kindness factory. One conversation, one
Speaker:waffle, and one act of service at a time. And
Speaker:while she's famous for helping others rise, Bharti is the kind of person
Speaker:who insists she couldn't do any of it alone. She says,
Speaker:I needed my husband, I needed my friends, I
Speaker:needed my community. And that's the beauty of it. Her
Speaker:story isn't about a single big act. It's about thousands of
Speaker:small ones stacked up like, you guessed it, waffles.
Speaker:Sometimes the secret ingredient to community isn't power or policy,
Speaker:its presence, sprinkled consistency like baking
Speaker:powder. And maybe Bharti's right. A good act
Speaker:of kindness, like a good waffle, is best shared
Speaker:fresh with someone sitting right across the table.
Speaker:And now it's time for our Neighborhood Watch segment.
Speaker:Before we move on to our final headline, it's time for our Neighborhood Watch, the
Speaker:segment where we peek into the more creative side of community
Speaker:life. When fences make good neighbors and
Speaker:jackhammers don't. Today's story takes place in Campbell
Speaker:River, B.C. where one man happened to turn yard work into a
Speaker:full blown courtroom drama. For six years, a man
Speaker:named Reno and his neighbors traded insults. Dog poop.
Speaker:And finally, jackhammers.
Speaker:Yes, he actually jackhammered his neighbor's retaining wall while dressed in
Speaker:orange coveralls, laughing Merry Christmas between
Speaker:each swing. A judge has now ordered him to pay over
Speaker:$16,000 in damages and issued what might be
Speaker:Canada's most polite warning. Don't be that guy.
Speaker:This is one instance where tearing down the walls, as it says in the theme
Speaker:song of this podcast, isn't quite what we're talking about.
Speaker:You have to admire the dedication, though. It takes real commitment to hold a grudge
Speaker:and a power tool at the same time. And this gives a whole
Speaker:new meaning to needing to mend fences. We share
Speaker:these stories not just for a laugh, but for a lesson. If your
Speaker:relationship with your neighbor is so bad that you need hearing protection,
Speaker:maybe start a conversation instead of concrete removal. And
Speaker:we all had those quirky neighbors. And I'm sure in many
Speaker:cases we are that quirky neighbor. Lets move from
Speaker:quirky neighbors to better neighbors. So what
Speaker:would you do? Would you call it in? Would you try to talk
Speaker:it out? Would you let go and pray? Or would you grab your
Speaker:own jackhammer? And no, don't do that. In fact, this
Speaker:might be one of those polls where you want to choose that other category and
Speaker:tell me what you would do. You can do that and weigh in on our
Speaker:weekly poll at the Care Impact podcast group on Facebook.
Speaker:Because every neighborhood's got its quirks and sometimes you're the
Speaker:quirky one. And now on to the last headline of the
Speaker:day. Knit Happens. How Port
Speaker:Stanley Painted the Town Red. Meanwhile, in
Speaker:Port Stanley, Ontario, more than 100 volunteers spent
Speaker:nearly a year knitting and crocheting
Speaker:15,555 red
Speaker:poppies, each one a handmade tribute to Canada's
Speaker:veterans. Their goal was to paint the village red,
Speaker:and they did exactly that. And it's a good thing Port
Speaker:Stanley doesn't host the Running of the Bulls, because with that much red
Speaker:yarn, they'd be in a lot of big trouble. But from
Speaker:park benches to the iconic fish shaped welcome sign,
Speaker:the whole town is draped in remembrance.
Speaker:Organizer Kathy Holworth said the idea came after seeing
Speaker:a similar project in Stratford. She thought
Speaker:someone should do that here, and then realized that
Speaker:someone could be me. 6,000 volunteer
Speaker:hours later, Port Stanley's bridge and legion are covered in
Speaker:poppies, a vivid reminder that gratitude is best
Speaker:expressed with our hands, not just our words.
Speaker:And let's hope that they've had enough volunteers to help clean up afterwards.
Speaker:Now you're hearing this after Remembrance Day, but this community shows
Speaker:that honour can be beautiful, practical and stitched
Speaker:together one poppy, one story and one
Speaker:neighbor at a time. So from New Market's hidden
Speaker:envelopes to Drayton Valley's waffles and Port
Speaker:Stanley's sea of yarn, these stories remind us that compassion
Speaker:is still Canada's quiet superpower. And as for that
Speaker:Campbell river fiasco, let's just say that kindness
Speaker:is cheaper than court fees. These
Speaker:headlines remind us that good news is still all around us if
Speaker:we take the time to notice. Do you have a story of care
Speaker:happening in your neighborhood? Share it at NeighbourlyPodcast
Speaker:CA or join our Care Impact podcast group on Facebook.
Speaker:Neighbourly is an initiative of Care Impact, a Canadian charity
Speaker:equipping churches, agencies and communities with tech and training
Speaker:to care better together. Learn more@careimpact CA.
Speaker:I'm Johan Heinrichs and this has been neighborly headlines because
Speaker:every story of care deserves to be seen and shared
Speaker:Turning. Over tables Tearing
Speaker:down walls Building up the
Speaker:bridges between the stones
Speaker:of this turning over table
Speaker:Breaking off chains when I see you
Speaker:in a stranger.
