COLUMN: Carillon Flashback September 3, 2001 – Jim Penner first recipient of Variety’s humanitarian award

Steinbach MLA Jim Penner will be recognized for his outstanding contribution to Manitoba special needs children at a Variety Club of Manitoba banquet at the Mennonite Heritage Village later this month.

The first annual Gold Heart Humanitarian of the Year Award Dinner, Sept. 12, will recognize Penner’s giving back to the community through his business, as an individual and most recently as a member of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative caucus.

While the Variety Club is honoring him mainly for his corporate contributions to his community, the long-time grocer and his wife, his former staff and the community deserve an equal share of any credit due.

Steinbachers, and for that matter, all Manitobans, have a long-time tradition of generous giving and Penner says he is only too happy to have been able to be part of that.

For him, that spirit of community involvement in helping others has been evident since his family arrived in Steinbach in 1946. His father struggled to make ends meet as he established his small grocery store and Penner says he knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of help from a caring community.

As an employer in the grocery business, he looked for charities to support as his business grew to a successful chain of six stores.

He points out that three percent of the population are learning challenged or living with a mental disability and another three percent are physically disabled in some way. Everyone knows somebody in these groups.

With the challenges their son Philip has faced, Penner and his wife Bev have always been involved in Steinbach’s Association for Community Living.

Penner Foods stepped in as a major sponsor for the Manitoba Marathon in its second year and the enthusiasm with which the staff embraced that charity is amazing to Penner.

“They would turn out 160 strong at 6 a.m. on Father’s Day.”

The same enthusiasm and support have been shown in Variety Club’s fundraising efforts for those with physical disabilities.

“When you have six stores in different communities, you look for something with a commonality. All of us are sharing the need for people to be able to live the best possible lifestyle.”

Even though he no longer owns the stores, Penner is proud to see his former employees carrying on the tradition and still have a Penner Foods Hour on the annual Variety Club telethon.

Penner has also carried on the tradition, and after selling the business and being elected MLA, one of the first things he did was to enlist his 23 PC colleagues to help man the phones and raise funds for Variety.

Penner believes making life better for the mentally and physically disadvantaged goes beyond the responsibility of government and universal medical programs.

At the same time, he agrees corporate involvement is not necessarily entirely altruistic. Companies with a large number of employees have found that physical fitness leads to mental alertness and increased productivity.

There is also the social aspect of people getting together outside a work environment to help others, and most importantly, experience the joy of giving.

And giving of time is much more significant and valuable than giving their money, Penner says. His constituency is blessed with an abundance of willing volunteers, he adds.

Founded in 1978 by a group of prominent Winnipeggers and Manitobans, many in the entertainment industry, the Variety Club of Manitoba has raised more than $17 million in Manitoba to help disabled and disadvantaged children.

Although it receives no government funding, Variety is supported by representatives of all levels of government through participation in fundraising activities by individuals both elected and appointed.

Variety funds are raised through innovative projects like the new Gold Heart Humanitarian of the Year Award Dinner, which invites the public to honor the recipient at a fundraising dinner.