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Wolfville resident Shirley Soleil is a helping kind of person. Although she has battled a chronic disability for years, Soleil has just received a unique grant that will allow her to advocate for others.

The federal committee on Human Resources, Social Development and Status of Persons with Disabilities selected her as the 2006-2007 winner of the $4,500 Centennial Flame Research Award. Soleil will receive funding to examine the contribution of one disabled individual involved in the Upper Room Food Bank Association in Kingston since it was formed in 1991. Harley Hazelwood is currently managing the food bank.

The Centennial Flame Research Award Fund uses money thrown in the 1967 flame to enable disabled persons to conduct research about the contribution the disabled made to public life in Canada.

“I have been involved with organizations helping people since I was a teenager,” says Soleil. Gradually, advocating for those unable to speak for themselves became a predominant part of my work.”

Once a Baptist minister, Soleil’s debilitating symptoms kept her house bound for years. They still severely limit her energy.

“This past year the doctors discovered my primary pain situation was caused by nerve damage.” Now she is on the right medications and says she has her life back most days.

A number of years ago Soleil used her self discipline, good organizational skills, motivation and lots of volunteers to set up the Invisible Disabilities Association of Canada. It operated for 14 years. “Even now, the web site is up for people seeking information. I still volunteer my time and energy through email and phone communication.” In recent years she has focused on her consulting business, Shirley & You, Life Skills Instructor.

”Like many disabled people I became an entrepreneur. I can work my own hours, take rest periods during the day and take long weekends to rest up from especially busy and physically taxing weeks. Working from my home enables me to work at a regular four-hour day job and when able increase those hours to six a day. I do not have to worry about physically taxing environments. exposures to chemicals, lifting above my head, sitting or standing for extended periods of time.

She acts as a counselor, tutor, writer, editor and facilitator at workshops. “I look forward to doing more than four hours of work a day in the future because I am finally on a healthier path.”

Soleil believes strongly that there would be no need for food banks if Nova Scotians on social assistance received a decent income, if minimum wage was enough to live on and “if people went back to helping their neighbours.”

Government cutbacks, she asserts, are the reason society requires so many non-profits charitable organizations. “Now the new government is cutting funding to those very organizations that picked up the slack. The ability to read, for example, opens many doors to employment. Cuts to this area mean more people are going to social services and to food banks.”

Soleil says she sometimes wonders if the reason the working poor show up at food banks is because they simply cannot earn enough to pay for the necessities of life. Individuals on disability pensions are often in the same boat.

“People should never go hungry in a wealthy country like Canada. I guess I am saying we need food banks, but we should not have to need them,” she suggests.