In June, I had a chance to sit in on one of the Animikiig  workshops for young playwrights of First Nations/Metis/Innuit  backgrounds. It’s a 2 year program with the goal of training playwrights to develop scripts for production. Some sessions are built around exercises, and some are readings and discussions, and I attended the reading/discussion of Blue Moon Girls, by Jessica Lea Fleming – the story of returning to a place of one’s youth, and remembering and confronting the reasons for leaving.

All the participants in Animikiig collaborate with a dramaturg as well, and are working towards preparing pieces for the Young Voices night of the Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival (November 9 – 22, 2015), which is a fantastic chance to see the best work of young indigenous playwrights.

Yesterday, I had a chance to visit the amazing schoolyard garden run by PACT. It is a huge (and growing) garden on the northwest part of the John Polanyi Collegiate property, near Bathurst and Lawrence in Toronto. Even as the garden winds down for the winter, the work put into the garden and the output are impressive.

Adam Dirks gave me a tour of the vegetable plots, the chicken house, the learning area and the compost facilities.  Teachers at John Polanyi bring their classes out to work in the garden, cook, study nutrition, plan marketing, run markets, design community outreach, and sometimes just to use the space as a thoughtful place to be and learn. Students from many elementary schools also visit the garden regularly, and the programs are designed to help students learn with all their senses, which gives them a powerful, positive and long-lasting learning experience about food, ecology and the outdoors.

The Chawkers Foundation helped to fund the development of more classroom materials for high school and middle school.

To find out more about PACT’s many other programs and their other 4 beautiful gardens, go to their website at http://pactprogram.ca/ .

Last week, I was able to go to the opening of the Lest We Forget exhibition at the Lillian H. Smith Library on College Street, in Toronto. The Osborne is a special collection of children’s literature within the Toronto Public Library, and its collection is available to student groups, from the elementary school level to university programs. On the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I, this exhibition brings together a stunning variety of children’s literature relating to war, spanning The Napoleonic Wars in 1805 to Afghanistan in 2012. The material not only presents the stories of children’s experience in wars and conflicts, but also illustrates the differing ways that wars and conflicts have been presented to children over time. The exhibition begins and ends with the tragic direct role of children in war, as drummers, buglers and young sailors in the Napoleonic Wars to the child soldiers in modern conflicts. Yet the theme throughout all the works is the ultimate yearning for peace.

See http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/osborne/ for more information.

Last week we saw the Charlie’s Freewheels program in action. In conjunction with the Regent Park Community Health Centre, Charlie’s Freewheels runs a Queen Street storefront bike program for youth in Regent Park.

The winter term Build a Bike program was nearing completion, and last Wednesday, the guys were working on shifters and derailleurs. Bike frames are donated to the program, any parts that can be safely reused, are, and new tires, cables and brakeshoes are supplied. The young people keep the bike at the end of the program and are also given a free helmet and set of bike lights.

If you want to find out more, their website is charliesfreewheels.ca

We had a chance to visit Everdale Environmental Learning Centre in July. Everdale has launched an urban farming facility in partnership with Toronto Regional Conservation Authority and other local agencies, on the Black Creek property near Jane and Steeles. Much of it will be modelled on the work done at the Hillsburgh property of Everdale:

Everdale runs programs in organic agriculture, including vegetables, crops and livestock. We had a chance to see the facilities that have been constructed over the past 25 years of their impressive history. Chawkers gave funds in 2013 for the exciting and progressive new venture at Black Creek.

Their website is everdale.org