It’s Spring in Your Park: What you Need to Get Started
Spring has sprung. And with it, a new feature on Park People’s website.
We’ve created an entire library of park resources to give you free access a tips, tools on topics from organizing events in parks to working with your city councillor. It’s also where you’ll find all of Park People’s own research reports.
When you see people in their winter coats, faces turned to the sun, you know park season is ready for its season opener. Here are the must-read resources that you’ll want to check-out as park season starts to unfold.
Park Cleanups
The debris that accumulated during the winter makes your park look like it’s in a major slump instead of primed and ready for warm weather. Fear not, a park clean-up is a perfect way to kick start your park group’s annual event line-up and get the community members involved in taking direct ownership over their community park
Here are two resources to get you started planning your park cleanup:
Here are the dates and links to cleanups key Canadian cities:
- Toronto: Saturday, April 21 and Sunday, April 22. Sign up by April 17 to participate.
- Ottawa: Saturday, April 27 and Sunday April 28. Register to participate.
- Calgary: Sunday May 7. Register to participate
- Montreal: Sunday April 28. Register up by April 17 to participate.
- Vancouver: Ongoing. Register to start or join a cleanup
Jane’s Walks
May 4th, 5th, and 6th, participate in this global festival of citizen-led walks. Now in over 40 Canadian cities, Jane’s Walks activate the ideas of Jane Jacobs through citizen-led walking tours that make space for people to collectively re-imagine the places in which they live, work and play.
Leading a Jane’s walk in your park is a great way to get a park group started, or to uncover some of the unique attributes of your park and surrounding neighbourhood.
We’ve created a resource on how you can lead a great Jane’s Walk in your park.
Plan for Planting
Photo Credit: Stephanie Overton
A food forest produces more and more food over time. You can think of it as an RRSP. Planting perennial vines and fruit is a solid long term investment in food security.
If you’ve ever picked berries along a trail or shared your home-grown abundance of fruit or vegetables (zucchini seems to be particularly popular) with neighbours, you know something the power of urban agriculture. Several organizations across Canada, like Kitchener, Ontario’s Grand River Food Forestry and Richmond British Columbia’s Richmond Food Security Society run programs that make use of urban fruit to benefit communities.
We’ve created resources based on their experiences. Learn about:
Please be sure to take a tour of our new resources library, and tell us the resources you want to see here by emailing us at info@parkpeople.ca