October 2014 - 20

Canadian Kindness Felt in Faraway Cambodia
BY BRENT MANLEY

M

ost people in the bridge
world know Barbara
Seagram as one of the top
teachers, a prolific author
and an intrepid tour guide. What's not
so well known is how far she will go to
help her fellow mankind.
About three years ago, Seagram and
fellow tour guide Patti Lee discovered
a need in Cambodia and went into action. Today, they and their supporters
sustain the operations of four schools
in the Phnom Penh area, paying for
electricity, supplies (including computers) and the salaries of teachers and
librarians.
Funds to help run the schools come
from the bridge players of Canada. "We
couldn't do it without them," says Lee,
a retired IBM account executive who
took up teaching and directing bridge
after leaving the company. Lee has
traveled with Seagram for 20 years,
organizing and escorting bridge groups
in various parts of the world.
Seagram and Lee lately have directed
their attention to the construction of
a health clinic, which they estimate
will cost $50,000. Seagram is gratified
at what she and the bridge players of
Canada have managed so far, but she is
realistic: "There's so much that needs
to be done."

Patti Lee, fellow school supporter
Pauline Johns of Australia and
Barbara Seagram at one of the
schools they sustain in Cambodia.
With them is Chamnap, the main
teacher at the school.

20 Bridge Bulletin October 2014

Important to the mission is maintaining outreach programs at the
schools, which are often centers for
their communities. Says Seagram, "We
try to help people become self-sufficient through some of the programs:
teaching people how to be chicken
farmers, helping set up bike shops,
teaching women to sew and helping
them get jobs."
Seagram, who lives in Toronto, is
originally from Barbados. She left her
home country in 1966 to attend the
University of New Brunswick. She
taught nursing at Women's College
Hospital in Toronto, retiring from that
job in 1975. At the urging of her former
mother-in-law, Seagram took bridge
lessons at the Kate Buckman Bridge
Studio, which she would later own.
She started helping out right away and
began teaching the game in 1978. She
purchased the club 12 years later. She
and her husband, Alex Kornel, ran the
club until selling it in 2006.

As a club owner and manager, Seagram pioneered the Zero Tolerance
policy that was officially adopted by
the ACBL Board of Directors. At its
peak, the Kate Buckman club logged
12,000 to 13,000 tables a year with 25
sessions of bridge per week.
In the 30 years that she and Kornel
have hosted bridge tours and cruises,
Seagram reckons they have visited
about 155 countries. On many of the
trips, Seagram says, it was hard not
to notice poverty and need among the
people they encountered.
At one point, Seagram and Lee
started encouraging tour participants
to pack their suitcases with things that
would be valued by the people of the
countries they would visit. Seagram
says toothbrushes and toothpaste are
important items, but pens, paper and
toys are also popular.
Along the way, they met a Canadian
woman - Lisa McCoy of Gravenhurst
ON - who spends six months a year in
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2014
