Stanley Teo

An interview with Stanley Teo for the Lillian H. Smith Story Project.

Teo, Stanley

Wong, Christina

MP3

August 25, 2015

Downtown (Toronto, Ont.)

Kensington-Chinatown (Toronto, Ont.)

Wong, Christina

Wong, Christina

Teo, Stanley

Lillian H. Smith Branch

00:00 Speaker 1: So I was hired in a non-profit sector, we deal mainly with newcomers and refugees. So with this organization by the name of Culture Link. So back in 2008, there was a program that started here, it's called the Library Settlement Partnerships Program, and I was hired I think sometime in August back in 2008. So yes, he remembered the day, whereby, I think there were three interviewers, two were from my agency, one was my manager, one was my HR Director and counselling, and then the third person was the then branch head here at Lilian, her name was Sukind [00:52] ____, I think she's the branch head at Asian [00:57] ____ right now. I actually still kept in contact with her. Yeah, that was my earliest memory of LHS. Before then I had never stepped in here, except once, whereby I first moved here 10 years ago.

01:14 S1: So I've been here for about I think six years, no, it's got to be more than six years, 2008 till now, more seven years would be right, so I've seen quite a bit of changes, but mostly through just staffing changes, so it's like people come and go. I've attended numerous but fond farewells and events and stuff like that here.

01:44 Speaker 2: So it's like a sense of community?

01:46 S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I mean this is one thing that... This is one of my fondest memories here, should I leave, it's the people working here. Yeah, it's has always been very, very tight-knitted, and they have always been very supportive of the program here, of the LSP program here, I was never treated as an outsider here. And even then, when I first started my job here on my first day, I think Sukind had gave me everything, including the forms, and she spent two hours giving me orientation here.

02:20 S2: How do you think the program has changed since you started? Or have you seen changes with the people that have been coming?

02:30 S1: Some serve the clientele?

02:32 S2: Clientele, have you seen any impact of having the program?

02:37 S1: Of my program, or the library, or just in general?

02:39 S2: Your program, just because there was a story earlier, a girl and she didn't have access to this program, so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that?

02:52 S1: Yeah, I'm still in contact with a couple of my clients that I'd started when I first started my program back in 2008, but I think they only started using the program after that of course. So a lot of them, they have moved on from learning English and getting jobs to improving their lives, what I mean, I know this woman who had actually bought a place, she bought a house, and she went back to school. She actually went back to school with her son, studying massage therapy, they were both in the same class. And now they are owning their own business, they have their own business on [03:40] ____ now, so yeah. Back then when I met her, she barely knew much English. She had attended a lot of my programs, a lot of our programs here. So a few of them, they used to live Downtown, but again, they had to start a family, they moved outside Toronto. So got houses in Scarborough [04:06] ____.

04:10 S1: So, yeah, the fond memory that I have of this place is actually doing programs in the basement room, program room A, B or C. I used to do a lot more programs back in those days, especially when I used to work on every Saturday, I used to run Conversation Circles on Saturdays, or workshops on Saturdays, but it's not only fun, it moves the day, what I mean before I know it, today's gone. So if I do workshops back to back, I do one from 10:00 to 12:00, and I have a break and do one from 2:00 to 4:00, then before I know it, I just need to pack everything up and call it a day.

05:00 S2: Yeah, so not really work.

05:00 S1: No, it's not really, I usually have fun during those days, in fact it's something that I always look forward to, interacting... But I'm only the one doing the organizing, so I get speakers to come in and present. The other favorite memory is of course our very well-known librarian here, Chen Chu Pian [05:24] ____, I call her Ms. Chen, very fondly. Yeah, she was one of the first... She was a very vivid supporter of this program actually, and in fact back then a lot of the referrals were actually sent by her. And occasionally she would... I wouldn't say occasionally, sometimes when we were running the Conversation Circle and we didn't have enough volunteers, she actually had chipped in to help out with the program, of course depending on her schedule of course.

06:00 S1: Right, so yeah. And it was always nice to have her around doing the referrals. Yeah and I think she fully understood how the program could benefit on both sides. So, yeah that's... Of course we know she's gone but she is still very sorely missed. But I'm just very glad to have known her and our paths had crossed, and especially so on... And capacity to extend it outside the working hours, so yeah.

06:38 S1: Her love of passion of baking and... Oh, I could mention that too. Yeah, one of the other favorite memories when she was around was that, well, she loved to cook and bake, especially baking. So yeah, so that's always, I could say bi-weekly treats. It would be weekly treats, when she took the baking program at George Brown, so every... And because she was single, so she always comes into the library the next day with too big Ikea bags with cheesecakes, with... I don't know, all kinds of dessert. And eventually, I think she also experimented with making her own ice cream.

07:26 S2: So good.

07:27 S1: Yes. Yeah, you had the mango stuff, so yeah, that's one of yeah, so and yeah. And I think we were joking around that, we should all... The staff here should all chipped in like $10 or $20 and ask her to take another course so I think it basically pays for it, so. Yeah, right, so.

07:45 S2: Yeah, we get treats.

07:48 S1: Yeah, we get treats every week, so yeah. That was happy times. I've been here for seven years already, so, yeah, hopefully, I will stay here for a little while longer but even if I go, there's always a lot of all the fun memories, working and having fun at work but it's also meant to provide the much-needed services and programs to our surrounding community members, right? So...