City of Toronto remembers June Callwood with tower lights, book launch, park dedication

The CN Tower will be lit up in pink and green on Wednesday night in honour of June Callwood. She died five years ago and was known for her prodigious journalism and for her passionate advocacy in many causes. 

She is being honoured at the Parler Fort speaker series at Fort York in Toronto marking the recent release of a commemorative book It’s All About Kindness: Remembering June Callwood,(Cormorant Books), edited by Margaret McBurney. The book contains recollections by nearly 60 people who knew or worked with Callwood. The event, hosted by the CBC's Michael Enright and with music by singer Molly Johnson, will coincide with the groundbreaking of a park nearby built in her name and May 16 is being proclaimed "It's All About Kindness Day" in Toronto. An article in Quill & Quire reports

For McBurney, the book’s main purpose is to keep Callwood’s name and legacy alive among younger generations. It was inconceivable to the designer and historian that her dear friend – who wrote 30 books and more than 1,500 magazine articles, was a founding member of PEN Canada and The Writers’ Union of Canada, and had been integral in the establishment of community organizations such as the AIDS hospice Casey House, Nellie’s shelter for women and children, and Jessie’s Centre for Teenagers (now called the June Callwood Centre for Women and Families) – might vanish from popular memory.