{mosimage}TORONTO - From the catwalk to the classroom, former fashion model Judi Vankevich is a role model of good manners for kids.

Vankevich, a.k.a. the Manners Lady, is a mother of three and former beauty pageant contestant who says learning manners was a staple in her family when she was growing up in Mississauga.

“I realize that Canadians have a worldwide reputation for having good manners,” she said.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Before the lunch hour rush, chef Scott Vivian prepares locally grown leeks to accompany his slowly braised short ribs from a Bradford, Ont., farm.

Vivian, executive chef of Jamie Kennedy on the Gardiner restaurant atop Toronto’s Gardiner Museum , is an advocate of the international Slow Food movement which has been picking up steam in Canada. Its Toronto-based chapter has grown from five volunteers to more than 200 in six years, joining the 100,000-strong Slow Food movement in some 150 countries.

Slow Food movement supporters believe that access to good, clean, fair food is “an irrevocable human right.” Carlo Petrini started the movement in 1986 as a grassroots protest against fast food and the lifestyle it came to represent.

{mosimage}AJAX, Ont. - It was only their second date when Patrick Douglas asked his future bride how many children she would like to have in her family.

Her first answer was “however many children God gives me,” Carissa Douglas, 31, recalls. Her second answer, she adds, was 12.

“Then (Patrick) hugged me tighter because it was an odd thing,” she says with a smile.

{mosimage}TORONTO - A 13-year-old girl is battling cancer, but after nine years of treatment, her doctor has run out of medication options to beat the illness and help her stay alive.

An 85-year old woman suffers internal bleeding after taking medication for a long-term skin condition and asks her doctor to stop treatment and “let her die.”

TORONTO - Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins says being a bishop means being a good spiritual father and shepherd of the community.

Collins is entering his third year as archbishop of Canada’s largest archdiocese.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As the brotherhood of bishops for the archdiocese of Toronto grows, it will bring change to how the archdiocese is managed by its shepherds.

Before the ordinations on Jan. 12 and 13, respectively, of Bishop William McGrattan and Bishop Vincent Nguyen, Toronto’s three auxiliary bishops looked after three distinct geographical regions of the widespread archdiocese comprising more than 220 parishes. Now that there are four auxiliaries, the pie has been divided into four regions with the creation of a new eastern region.

{mosimage}TORONTO - More than 600 people attended the 25th Cardinal Carter Altar Server Awards ceremony and Mass at St. Paul’s Basilica on Oct. 11.

It was the first time that the ceremony, sponsored by the Serra Clubs of Toronto, was held outside St. Michael’s Cathedral.

{mosimage}As the economic crisis hits the developed world, it’s easy to forget that other countries continue to struggle with poverty.

But Marion Sandilands, Asia program officer of CHF, formerly Canadian Hunger Foundation, says it’s just as important to remember that a billion people live on one dollar a day.

{mosimage}Being taped to the wall or having pies thrown at you by your students aren’t exactly part of the job description of being a Catholic school principal.

But for Daphne Brumwell of Sacred Heart Catholic School in Timmins, Ont., the pie-throwing and wall-taping events were all for a good cause.

TORONTO - As she prepares to journey to South Africa this month, lay missionary Rachel Beggs says she is looking forward to caring for children with HIV/AIDS and teaching at a school run by the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood in Marianhill, near Durban.

Beggs decided a year ago to volunteer overseas, an experience the 27-year-old piano teacher hopes  will help her find a job when she returns to Peterborough, Ont., at the end of August.