Maybe you’ve experienced that awkward moment when you return from winter break and ask someone, “How was your Christmas?” and they tell you they don’t celebrate it.

They are the ones that are often overlooked by society: the homeless, the sick and the mentally ill. But among the hundreds who turn a blind eye to Ottawa’s homeless every day, there are those who take the time to care.

On the night of Nov. 30, health professionals and colleagues from around Ottawa gathered at the University of Ottawa Hospital Campus to attend Beyond Barriers, an exhibit celebrating health-care workers on the frontlines helping the less fortunate.

Santa Claus hats keep the workers warm as they carefully place freshly cut Christmas trees in the trunks of customers’ cars.

Festive Bing Crosby music and the light scent of pine greets those who walk through the parking lot and enter Ian’s Evergreen Plantation — a tree farm located just outside city limits, at 804 Richmond Rd.

Children unblinkingly watch reindeer play in their log-fence protected field, while those who have harvested new trees relax by the campfire and sip on free hot chocolates.

The provincial government is spending roughly $650,000 on advertisements encouraging university and college students to attend H1N1 immunization clinics.

“University students are away from home for possibly the first time and away from their family’s influence,” said Kevin Finnerty, executive director of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care communications and information branch.

The women’s studies department at Queen’s University is currently in the process of changing its name to “gender studies” as a way to open up the program to new possibilities. However, they are not the first to do so.

Since Nipissing University changed its women’s studies program to gender equality and social justice, enrolment in the program has increased a significant amount.