This year again, local leaders gathered their neighbours, built connections, and restored nature in projects big and small. The movement continues to expand, and we're pleased to share just some of these impacts in our 2025 Impact Report.
Ready to rally your crew and make a visible difference in your local park? This guide walks you through everything you need to host a successful community clean-up in Toronto
Creative ways to connect people to nature, community, and care for ravines in Toronto.
Parc Jarry in Montreal, Toronto’s waterfront, CRAB Park in Vancouver… People are coming together to protect the places they love.
What could Toronto’s parks look like in the years ahead? Our 2026 Parks Platform brings together ideas from Torontonians and four priorities for a more resilient, joyful and connected city.
Host free, community-led park activities in Toronto with the No-Fee Community Activations Booking. This hour-long virtual session will walk you through the booking: what's eligible, and how to apply step by step.
By donating to Park People, you’ll support vibrant parks for everyone.
A profound Indigenous saying here on Turtle Island is that Water is Life. Water is not only scientifically required for life to flourish, but it also connects people to new places; it brings people together. In Toronto, we are lucky to have many water sources – from rivers and lakes to ponds and ravines formed through thousands of years of geographical shifts.
Focusing on these waterways, the InTO the Ravines program, launched in 2020, has made quite a splash. First conceptualized on the heels of Toronto’s first-ever Ravine Strategy, the program’s multifaceted, support-focused and community-first approach has made soaring positive impacts. The InTO the Ravines program seeks to mitigate the impacts of climate change that continue to become more apparent everywhere, including in Toronto’s urban and natural spaces, while keeping communities at the centre.
As the program nears its 4-year mark, Park People has recently launched the Ravine Engagement Report, highlighting its tremendous impacts on the communities it serves across the city.
InTO the Ravines has sought to tackle the fact that despite many people living or working near them, Toronto’s ravines are often forgotten spaces in the city. InTO the Ravines consists of two main components.
First, a microgrant stream, where community-led groups are funded to host gathering and learning events in and around Toronto’s ravine system. Second, a champions training program, where pairs of community leaders are provided training, funding, and event planning support to host an event in their local ravines.
Equity-deserving community groups who face barriers, including uncertainty due to fear of getting lost or other feelings of lack of safety, in accessing ravine spaces are prioritized. As can be found throughout the Ravine Engagement Report, InTO the Ravines, through its very design, has been developed to work more closely and collaboratively with equity-deserving community members to support the Protect, Connect, and Celebrate tenets of the Ravine Strategy.
The multipronged nature of the program has had wide-reaching impacts: over 3,000 community members have actively engaged with their ravine spaces, with 50 champions receiving training and support over the course of the past three years.
Since the implementation of this unique and innovative program began three years ago, everyone involved in InTO the Ravines, whether they have played the role of champions, grantees, or program staff, has been able to experience Toronto’s ravine spaces in different, unique, and memorable ways. InTO the Ravines program also emphasizes continuing to develop relationships with the ravine spaces long after their involvement in the program ends.
InTO the Ravines centres around fostering connections between people and nature and nurturing spaces for self-connection or self-reflection.
As the program launched and the impacts of the pandemic became more pronounced, including greater feelings of isolation and sadness, the importance of these natural spaces became all the more crucial, especially for those in equity-deserving communities. As the program facilitates space for community gatherings in and around ravine spaces, community connection is a major element of this program. Over 100 events have been hosted by community members, and 15% of in-person event attendees said they had never visited a ravine before. Importantly, in a space where the impacts of climate change manifest, ravine spaces become critical to highlight the need to restore relationships and reconnect to nature.
The connection piece of InTO the Ravines is especially emphasized through the champion training program. Here, champions get to meet each other and learn from each other and speakers from the Toronto Region Conservation Authority and the City of Toronto, as well as build up their own skills in event planning and networking.
For me, it was knowing more about not just what is the Ravine Strategy, but what the city sort of looked to develop and how it grew. So meeting with park staff…that was pretty cool because I think on just our own– we had the documents, but just hearing it from the city and the work on that strategy was cool to get an inside look.
Program Participant
Park People ensures that champion alumni remain connected to the program by supporting them through various means, events and opportunities, networks, and funding to continue their activation of ravines in the years after they have completed training and that they are re-connected to other cohort members. 50% of past participants have continued to host events in their ravines after completing the program.
Finally, InTO the Ravines has also helped facilitate new connections to the land through Indigenous teachings as part of the various ravine events.
Events like this or talking to an elder, for me, was one of the first opportunities to learn about Indigenous history and parks. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have ever known where to even find information other than just reading up online.
Park and nature access are unequal across the city. For many of our programs, including InTO the Ravines, Park People prioritizes working with equity-deserving, resident-led groups who often live close to ravines but, for various reasons, both physical and sociological, do not access them.
As mentioned in our Ravine Engagement Report, several participants reported that they either didn’t know that ravines existed in their communities or that they were unaware of how to access them.
Our research found this was especially true in communities of colour.
Specifically, the Champions training program has focused on redressing some of this imbalance by working with residents from equity-deserving communities to provide them with training, funding, and support. One of InTO the Ravines’ core value is that community members are the experts on their local parks, neighbourhoods and ravines, and their nuanced and lived knowledge of their local community make them excellent leaders to take on this work.
A community member shares the impact of this focus in our Ravine Engagement Report,
In a dense city like Toronto, where few people have access to backyards or natural areas outside the city, InTO the ravines helped (me) see these spaces as shared places where (I) could get away from the daily life in the city.
Community member
Significantly, 70% of event attendees are more likely to bring friends and family to visit the ravines in the future.
Another cornerstone of the InTO the Ravines program is strong and collaborative partnerships. The InTO the Ravines Champions training program focuses on working together as a group and helps foster partnerships between sets of champions and inter-community partnerships across different city regions. As a testament to this, 125 park and ravine groups and 30 organizations worked together on the development and execution of InTO the Ravines.
Additionally, The City of Toronto and Park People developed this program collaboratively and continue to work jointly through the year to support each other’s strengths and to offer assistance or help fill in gaps. InTO the Ravines champions and microgrant recipients work collaboratively with Park People and the City through focus groups, feedback and evaluations to improve the program each year and are plugged into our wider Toronto Network. This year, Park People worked directly with past champions to provide partnership and support where groups requested it, continuing to prioritize working in trusting and collaborative relationships with community groups.
These themes also show up in a myriad of other ways through our Ravine Engagement Report.
Also, find the Ravine Strategy here to learn more about the important principles and how you can get involved.
If you are in Toronto between Saturday, September 30 and October 9, we highly encourage you to attend a Ravine Days event, including one that Park People and Evergreen are jointly supporting on Saturday, October 7, and one that STEPS Public Art is hosting with the support of Park People’s Cornerstone program.
Every summer, Toronto’s parks come alive with art, music, theatre, and dance through Arts in the Parks, a city-wide initiative that turns public green spaces into open-air stages.
Presented by the Toronto Arts Foundation in partnership with the Toronto Arts Council, the City of Toronto, and Park People, this unique program animates parks in every corner of the city, from concrete plazas to lush green spaces in Scarborough, Etobicoke, and North York.
Since the program’s launch in 2016, more than 700,000 people across the city have visited 78 parks for over 2,400 free arts events including Japanese Taiko drumming, collaborative mural painting, and African circus performances—to name just a few!
At Park People, our vision for Canada’s cities includes vibrant parks where people and the rest of nature thrive, and where everyone—regardless of income, identity, ability, or age—has equal access to the benefits of public green space.
However, 33 percent of Torontonians don’t live within walking distance of arts and cultural programming, and overwhelmingly, those people are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, and newcomer residents of the city’s inner suburbs.
To close this gap, Park People supports Arts in the Parks by selecting sites in areas where access to free cultural programming isn’t generally as accessible, and where new opportunities for creative park animations abound.
Park People also supports the Arts in the Parks program by drawing on our biggest skill: strengthening the relationships between neighbours and their local parks. To ensure that events are responsive to the needs and interests of their surrounding communities, we bring our relationships with park groups and local leaders into the process early on, helping to shape events that reflect the neighbourhood and invite people in.
“Our role is to connect. Before events are organized, we try to bring together artists and community groups, usually in the park where the event will happen. These early meetings create space for ideas to grow.”
Cindy Hashie, Senior Project Manager at Park People.
These meetings are a chance for everyone at the table to share stories, ask questions, and shape something new, together. Community groups bring valuable knowledge, like when the park is busiest or which language flyers should be printed in, while artists can share their creative visions and learn what matters most to the people who use the park every day.
“We help make the connection so everyone feels comfortable, heard, and respected.”
Ayesha Talreja, Project Manager at Park People.
For Ayesha, one of the most exciting parts of Arts in the Parks is seeing how it inspires event attendees to think about their own creative potential.
Ana Cuciureanu is just one great example: Ana first got involved in Arts in the Parks as the founder of the Friends of Parkway Forest Park, a group also supported through Park People’s Sparking Change program. After seeing how Arts in the Parks brought community-based art into her beloved local park, Ana decided to create her own event through her collective Splash on Earth, which brings together eco-artists, storytellers, and neighbours to make public art using eco-paint made from food waste. Ana’s team has hosted Arts in the Parks events for three years, and even formed a non-profit dedicated to creative climate action.
“Ana understands what it means to collaborate. She’s been on both sides as a community organizer and as an artist. That perspective helps create events that reflect the community.”
Ayesha
Others have followed similar paths, like Christine Malec, who started as a participant in Park People’s InTO the Ravines initiative and now leads accessibility-focused arts programming through Arts in the Park. Her project, Described Toronto, offers audio-based tours of the city for people with sight impairments which are often incorporated into a podcast with rich descriptions of Toronto, its flora and fauna, inhabitants and culture.
These stories remind us that public space and public art are powerfully connected. When people see themselves reflected in what happens in their park, they feel a deeper sense of responsibility to their community, and often, an expanded sense of creative possibility.
Arts in the Parks aims to offer something for everyone, whether it’s Asian drumming or Salsa dancing that invite people to move together, or quiet moments of storytelling under a shady tree. Some events are deeply rooted in local cultural traditions, while others introduce new and unexpected art forms to neighbourhoods that may not have seen them before. No matter the medium, the program’s strength is in how it brings people together, and how it inspires long-term creative partnerships between artists and residents.
“Artists who return to the program year after year often think deeply about how to engage the community. They find creative ways to hear from neighbours and make space for local input in how their work takes shape.”
Of course, there are always challenges: schedules shift, event permits take time, and not every collaboration unfolds exactly as planned. But there is care in the process. And if an event has to move, the program works to make sure the original park still gets something special. The intention is always to honour local relationships and keep the doors open for participation.
As we approach the tenth anniversary of the program, Arts in the Parks continues to grow in both its reach and impact.
Between supporting artists in building meaningful community ties and helping park groups explore their creative side, we’re proud to be part of an initiative that brings joy, connection, and possibility to neighbourhoods across Toronto.
To learn more about Arts in the Parks and find more events near you this summer, visit artsintheparksto.org.
Mark your calendars! Here are a few of Cindy and Ayesha’s recommendations for the 2025 Arts in the Parks season:
July 12 & 13, Aug 9, Sept 6 2025 | 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM | Rowntree Mills Park
Exploring the intersections of nature, community arts and wellness, this public art program will share crafting and movement sessions, led by STEPS Public Art alongside local and Indigenous creators, to reconnect with the land and the Humber River. Learn more
August 16 & 23, 2025, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM | R.V. Burgess Park
Enjoy music from the Middle East, Mediterranean, South Asia, and more! Four different musical groups will perform modal music, a centuries-old system of music-making practiced by many cultures, with contemporary interpretations and new compositions. Learn more.
September 27, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM | Lee Lifeson Art Park
Artists will tell original stories inspired by the land and public artwork of Lee Lifeson Art Park, using descriptive and inclusive language that is accessible to a Blind and partially sighted audience. Participants will also experience a touch tour of the public artworks and 3D tactile models of the park. The Story Hour will be recorded live and released on the Described Toronto podcast. Learn more.
In 2026, 72 community groups and organizations across the country are receiving TD Park People Grants. They’ll be bringing people together in parks and green spaces through creative, inclusive, and environmentally focused events.
Their initiatives highlight the many ways local leaders are building stronger connections to nature and community from coast to coast.
Toronto Nature Stewards – Flemingdon Site in the Lower Don TrailColour in MindHumber River PalsFlemingdon Community Support Services / FCSSHLY Senior Health ClubHeart ComonosScarborough Village Community GardenFriends of Tom Riley ParkCommunity Climate CouncilDallington Pollinators Community GardenThorncliffe Park Women’s CommitteeWillow Park Ecology CentreFriends of Swan Lake
ComeUnity Roots Garden
food uniting neighbours / f.u.n.West Village Community Development Co-operativeThe Guelph Outdoor School
EcoSuperior Environmental Programs
Bells Corners Community Garden / BCCGPlant Pool Recreation AssociationCreate Change CollectiveFriends of Macdonald Gardens Park
Sanuk DeeCityHiveLet’s Talk Women of ColourAfghan Women Senior GroupHealth TogetherRiley Park Learning GardenYarrow Intergenerational Society for JusticeThe Sustainable GameHogan’s Alley SocietyVan Care CollectiveKenyan Community in British Columbia Society / KENBCHaro Park Senior’s indoor gardenActive Run Club
Kelowna Tree Protectors
Biquette-ÉcopâturageAssociation récréative Milton-ParcLe Vent et la TortueAmiEs du parc des gorillesNew Hope Senior Citizen’s Centre and the NDG Art HiveBasic Income Youth CollectiveParcours ÂMELa Planète s’invite à LongueuilJardins pour TousCollectif citoyen NDV au CarréOrganisme RespireSauvons la Falaise
Groupe d’éducation et d’écosurveillance de l’eauParc des Pékans
Pollinate / Polliniser AylmerEnviro Éduc-Action
EmberwoodIranian-Canadian Muslim Active Women / ICMAWSinkunia Community Development OrganizationLendrum Community League
Art and Creative Skills CollectiveDiverse Roots FoundationPamir Canadian Multiculturalism CouncilDroppin In YYC
West Central Women’s Resource CentreTrees Winnipeg / Coalition to Save the Elms Inc.Seeds of Life AllianceSave Our Seine River Environment Inc. / SOSBike Week Winnipeg
The Monthly Cycle HalifaxThe Villains Theatre AssociationZuppaHike Nova Scotia Society
Fredericton Active Transportation Coalition Inc.
“North of Euston” Neighbourhood Engagement ProjectEllen’s Creek Watershed Group / Charlottetown Area Watershed Association / CAWA
Parks are not “nice to have,” they are critical social, health, and environmental infrastructure for Toronto. City parks are lifelines in extreme heat waves. Social connectors in an age of increasing polarization. Keepers of biodiversity despite ever fragmenting urban landscapes.
To meet the biggest challenges we face in Toronto—climate change, biodiversity loss, social polarization, rising inequality—we need whole new ways to plan, design, manage, program, and govern parks. This shift requires doing things differently. It requires ensuring proper funding, sharing decision-making power, addressing inequities head-on, and prioritizing action on truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
As Toronto faces the upcoming mayoral by-election in June, we urge candidates for Mayor to accelerate the transition to a more equitable, resilient future for city parks by working with us on the ideas presented in this platform.
All of the ideas in this platform require us to invest more time and money into city parks. In our 2022 survey of residents of Canadian cities, 87% said they support more investment in parks.
Responsible for 60% of Canada’s infrastructure, municipalities like Toronto receive only 10 cents on every tax dollar.
And, the provincial government’s drastic changes to park levies and planning rules under Bill 23 will further diminish park budgets and reduce the amount of parkland created to support new growth.
All three levels of government, each of which have responsibilities for our natural environment and human health, need to come to the table. This is easier said than done. The multiple benefits of parks—health, environmental, social, economic—actually make it harder to invest at the scale we need to. Why? Because the benefits of investing in parks are distributed across many different ministries and government departments, each of which are accountable for their own budgets and plans. That is why we need to support governments to pursue an ambitious, whole-of-government approach to investment in Toronto parks.
Investing more in city parks is not an imposition or an obligation. It is an opportunity to transform Toronto for the better.
People living in Toronto will need to adapt to hotter, wetter and more unpredictable climates. Climate change is here and is already impacting our city. With the right investment, parks can serve as climate infrastructure and provide people with critical places of refuge in hot, dense cities where a major health crisis is unfolding.
At the same time, people are seeking out nature more for its mental and physical health benefits. People want more places to experience nature close to home: 71% of survey respondents said they value visiting naturalized spaces within a 10-minute walk of home, such as a native plant garden or small meadow. In fact, 87% of respondents said they were in favour of more native plant species within parks—the second most requested amenity after public washrooms. Toronto’s Ravine Strategy offers a strong road-map for ensuring these vital, biodiverse natural habitats are safeguarded for the future and enjoyed by residents, but funding has remained limited.
Invest in the co-benefits of naturalized spaces as climate resilience infrastructure, urban biodiversity habitat and vital nature connections in Toronto.
There is a clear and growing disparity in who has access to quality green spaces in Toronto. As COVID laid bare, equity-deserving communities face complex, interrelated health crises. Toronto must recognize how race, income and the built environment conspire to make parks a pressing environmental justice issue in our city.
Usable parks are the bar for entry. Toronto’s parks maintenance and operating budget has not kept pace with use and demand. There’s an urgent need to increase park operating budgets to ensure basic amenities like bathrooms and water are standard in every single Toronto park.
Spending on park operating budgets must start to keep pace with demand. It is basic: amenities like bathrooms and water must be the standard in every single Toronto park, with a priority focus on equity-deserving and high-use parks. Investments in basic amenities that promote park use must include:
There is an urgent need for new models of Toronto Park governance rooted in shared decision-making power. We need a new way of managing city parks that are more inclusive, and community-focused, and respect the land rights of Indigenous peoples and the knowledge of communities.
Over the past several years, communities have been actively working to decentralize power in institutional spaces. It is time for Toronto to give communities more decision-making power on the park issues that affect them most, particularly in equity-deserving communities.
This article was originally published in Municipal World.
This election season, several Canadian municipalities are anticipating lower voter turnout than ever. It’s a disconcerting trend for Jacquie Newman, a political science professor at Western University. “Most of what happens at the municipality level is going to have a real impact on your life,” Newman said.
We’re also seeing startlingly few candidates running for municipal office in cities like Toronto. “This is a symptom of an ailing democracy with low social capital,” said urbanist and researcher Josh Fullan. “People are burned out to their core by the pandemic and the growing list of things that simply don’t function as they should – internet and cellular coverage, water fountains in parks, four-hour lineups for sundry services.”
These trends indicate that Canadians feel a disconcerting sense of powerlessness when it comes to the human-scale touchpoints people engage with in their daily lives. Park People’s 2022 Canadian City Parks Report surveyed more than 3,000 urban Canadians. And, while Canadians value their parks more than ever before, the vast majority of respondents reported feeling a lack of agency about influencing decisions about city parks.
The survey found a dismal 22 percent of city residents reported feeling they “have a voice” in their local parks. Further, 48 percent of respondents who say they are unsure how to get involved in their park identify as members of racialized groups, compared to 36 percent who identify as white.
Grassroots park engagement can be a powerful on-ramp to civic engagement. Want to learn about how the city council works? Host a movie night or advocate for a new skating rink in your park. Parks are the most visible and tangible places where residents directly engage with political power structures. They are also where residents can exercise agency and feel they have a meaningful stake in collective outcomes. On the flip side, complex or impenetrable bureaucratic structures undermine an individual’s sense of agency and personal power. As activist and author Dave Meslin aptly says, “It’s hard to change the world if you can’t change a municipal by-law.”
Case studies featured throughout the report demonstrate how to build positive relationships with municipal power structures, heal fractured relationships, and boost civic engagement in parks. In the report’s survey of 30 Canadian municipalities, 92 percent of cities reported that COVID-19 changed the way they engage communities on park projects, with 35 percent reporting that the pandemic sparked more intentional outreach to equity-deserving groups.
Innovative models for trust-building featured in the report demonstrate how we can repair relationships, redistribute power, and foster a greater sense of civic agency in our cities.
The report highlights how Toronto Island Park Master Plan built in a pre-engagement phase to give residents a say in the engagement process itself.
To understand what Toronto Island park engagement should look like, the master plan team met with community organizations, Indigenous partners, and several departments across the city. Meetings between the city and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN) and other Indigenous partners who recognize the island as a sacred place of healing and ceremony led to important changes in the planned engagement process. For example, as a result of listening and early engagement, the city embedded ceremony into the engagement activities.
As the report highlights, Lori Ellis, Project Officer of Strategic Projects with the City of Toronto, acknowledged that the pre-engagement process took time, but added “It’s worth its weight in gold in regards to building that foundation of trust and transparency.”
Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellness Initiative piloted creative models for engaging with equity-deserving communities. One of the initiative’s city-supported prototypes is based in community-driven storytelling and sense-making. This approach is a deliberate shift away from city-driven data collection toward deep listening and relationship building.
To collect community stories, the city hired a team of 10 Local Listeners – community members living in Edmonton’s Alberta Avenue neighbourhood. The listeners collected over 150 stories from the community, which were then shared back at a public event called Knowsy Fest. The festival, a literal celebration of community knowledge, invited residents to interpret the stories and mine them for concrete ideas for street-level changes.
RECOVER places connection as the center its engagement process, which fundamentally changes the relationship between the City of Edmonton and the residents it serves. RECOVER’s approach is to “create environments where connections can flourish, both on the small scale, between individuals, and on the larger scale, through policy change at the institutional and systemic levels.”
Another powerful approach featured in the report is participatory budgeting, which gives residents a direct route to decision making about park investments. However, like many engagement strategies, participatory budgeting requires a nuanced understanding of community needs, contexts, and dynamics. As is a recurring topic in the report, doing this work takes time and deliberate focus.
For example, the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre*’s $10-million participatory budgeting program with the City of Montreal engages residents that are too often left out of consultation processes – namely non-citizens and youth over 12. In the end, the team found that youth and non-citizens welcomed the opportunity to be involved, representing about one-fourth of all those who directly voted for projects in their communities.
Isabelle Gaudette, the Coordinator for Participatory Processes for the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre, addressed the importance of building transparency, fairness, and inclusion into every step. For example, to avoid setting up participatory budgeting as a contest between neighbourhoods and reinforcing unequal access to power structures, Gaudette recommends prioritizing projects that activate and improve multiple parks. This way collaboration, connectivity, and equity are embedded in the selections. She also recommends processes from community development settings, such as having a diverse steering committee to build trust and ensure projects align projects with identified community needs.
Insights and lessons from the 2022 Canadian City Parks Report show how parks can play a stronger role in building and healing people’s relationships with frontline municipal power structures in cities. Taking the time to listen deeply, cultivate trust, and establish collaborative outcomes requires cities to invest time and resources to foster meaningful engagement. But this investment has implications that extend beyond our parks and can help build stronger civic and political engagement, which we need for healthy, thriving democracies.
Park People is thrilled to announce that Erika Nikolai will transition from Co-Executive Director to sole Executive Director, effective July 1. Erika’s current Co-Executive Director, Dave Harvey, will be retiring from Park People then.
Erika brings decades of not-for-profit experience in community development and city building to her new role. Dave and Erika have been sharing leadership of the organization since 2022.
She joined Park People in 2014 when their work was based exclusively in Toronto and went on to play a critical role as Park People’s Managing Director, helping to lead the organization’s expansion to cities and parks across Canada. Prior to joining Park People, Erika played leading roles at Evergreen, working with equity-deserving communities around urban agriculture, active transportation and green employment opportunities for youth.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to lead this amazing team as we continue to grow our impact in cities across the country. Dave has built an incredible legacy. What started as a call for more community involvement in parks in 2011 has grown into a small but mighty organization shifting the way we think about parks.”
Erika Nikolai, Park People’s Executive Director
Erika will lead Park People’s team of more than 30 staff with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Over its 13th-year history, Park People has helped create a massive paradigm shift for city parks: once considered “nice to have” amenities, city parks are now understood to be essential urban infrastructure.
“Asking Erika to be sole-ED recognizes Erika’s significant contributions to Park People’s success over the last 10 years. It’s such a positive, natural transition for the organization, and I look forward to where she takes Park People in their next chapter.”
Zahra Ebrahim, Chair of Park People’s Board of Directors
Retiring Co-Executive Director Dave Harvey, who founded Park People in 2011, shared the enthusiasm: “I’m so delighted with the transition in leadership to Erika. I’m leaving the organization with a fantastic leader supported by a great team.”
Dave intends to continue to support Park People and other greenspace-focused work as a consultant and advisor.
2024 is shaping to be a very exciting year for Park People and Canada’s city parks. The organization has many exciting initiatives in the works for this year, including its Canadian City Parks Report, Montreal Forum, TD Park People Grants and InTO the Ravines program, and the incredible Cornerstone Parks program for Canada’s large urban spaces.
When you think of a park, what do you see? Maybe it’s children chasing a soccer ball, picnics on sunny afternoons, or joggers winding down leafy trails. But at Park People, we know that the quietest stories can be the most powerful—and that parks hold untapped potential to change lives, especially for seniors.
It may surprise you to learn that seniors—who make up nearly 20% of Canada’s population—represent just 4% of park users. That’s a missed opportunity, because the benefits are profound. According to a study by CARP, living near a park reduces loneliness in seniors at a rate four times greater than even having children.
That’s where Park People’s Senior Park Champions program in Metro Vancouver comes in.
Every year, we support a group of inspiring older adults in Metro Vancouver to reclaim their place in nature by leading events in their local parks. With hands-on training, peer mentorship, and seed funding, each Senior Champion becomes a spark in their community—fostering belonging, joy, and wellness one gathering at a time.
Take Rita Wong, for example. When she joined the program, she wasn’t expecting just how deeply it would affect her. “It improved my physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being,” she said. “It was beyond words.” Through the program, Rita didn’t just find personal growth—she became a vibrant community leader, organizing park events.. Her efforts didn’t stop at the boundaries of a single program; they rippled outward, energizing her entire neighbourhood.
Then there’s C. Wong, whose first year as a Champion in 2023 offered a powerful window into the importance of intergenerational and cross-cultural connection. Hosting events that brought together Indigenous community members and local seniors in East Vancouver, C. Wong saw firsthand how nature could serve as a meeting ground for healing and unity—even through the rain. Inspired, they returned the following year as a mentor in 2024, championing inclusivity for differently abled individuals and those of non-normative gender identities.
“It deepened my understanding of the barriers people face, and strengthened my commitment to building truly inclusive communities.”
C. Wong, Park Senior Champions in 2023
One particularly heartwarming initiative emerged last year when a group of senior leaders asked a simple but powerful question: What about those who can’t come to the park? Their answer was beautifully creative. Using natural elements, sensory materials, calming sounds, and projected visuals, they brought nature indoors, creating immersive environments for individuals with disabilities who were unable to join outdoor activities. These gentle, multi-sensory experiences offered participants a chance to feel the forest floor, listen to birdsong, and gaze at blooming meadows—all from within the comfort of their own spaces.
These indoor sessions became some of the most popular events in the program, drawing up to 30 participants each time. Their success highlights not just a growing demand for accessible nature-based programming, but also the ingenuity of community-led solutions rooted in empathy. These Champions proved that you don’t have to be outside to feel connected to nature—you just have to be welcomed in.
To date, 30 Senior Champions have engaged 600+ seniors across Metro Vancouver in inclusive, meaningful ways. And this year, it could be your turn.
As a Senior Park Champion, you’ll receive:
You’ll have the freedom to create events that reflect your passions—be it Tai Chi under the trees, birdwatching mornings, knitting circles, Indigenous plant walks, art in the park, or cozy indoor nature retreats. Whatever your vision, we’re here to help you bring it to life.
Because the Senior Champion Program is more than events. It’s a movement of older adults reclaiming their place as leaders, connectors, and caretakers of community and nature.
Apply now to become a Senior Park Champion—and help make your neighbourhood a little more connected, inclusive, and vibrant.
“When we make space for seniors in our parks, we grow more than community—we grow care.”
Michelle Cutts, Director of Communications and Development
Every year, Park People brings together our network of changemakers—neighbours, volunteers, municipal staff, nonprofits, park leaders, and advocates—at our Park People Summits.
Held in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, these summits are more than just local networking events. They’re important moments for us to pause our work, to connect with one another, and to expand our sense of what’s possible in our cities.
At a Park People summit, anyone who cares about urban parks can join the movement to build vibrant, inclusive, and community-powered parks.
How Canadians access and care for their parks is changing dramatically. From increasing rates of social isolation to the instability of climate change, we need everyone at the table if we’re to build more resilient urban parks that meet our growing cities’ needs.
Park People was born from this same spirit. In 2011, a group of Toronto volunteers gathered around a simple but radical question: “How can we all play a role in making our parks better to serve people and neighbourhoods?” This idea struck a chord throughout our city, and a strong network of local park groups, programs, and partnerships began taking root.
But we didn’t stop there. In 2017, we hosted our first national conference in Calgary to bring together park leaders from across Canada to imagine what might be possible if we collaborated on a national scale. That gathering helped launch Park People’s National Network, which now includes over 1,400 park groups in 46 cities spanning every province. This first summit was proof that the grassroots potential we saw in Toronto existed everywhere, and that local ideas can ripple into national change.
We summit because urban parks aren’t just green spaces, they’re people spaces. As city dwellers, they’re our stages for connection, culture, protest, rest, and joy. And behind each well-loved local park are countless stories of community care, from the volunteers who organize clean-ups, to the artists who animate their spaces with music, movement, and meaning.
That’s why we summit: we’ve seen firsthand that when we come together and share these stories, we can create a parks movement that’s truly transformative.
This year’s Toronto Parks Summit is happening on Saturday, June 14, from 12 to 6 PM at Daniels Spectrum, and anyone who cares about parks is invited. You’ll hear stories of creative collaborations and meet the people shaping the future of our city parks. Between sessions, there will be time to connect over food, visit interactive community stations, and share your own experiences as part of this growing network.
Our keynote speaker is interdisciplinary artist Ange Loft, who’ll reflect on Indigenous presence and partnerships in parks, followed by a stellar panel on community-driven initiatives featuring Ana Cuciureanu (Splash on Earth & City of Toronto) Julia Hitchcock (Apothecary’s Garden and Teaching Gardens at Churchill Park), Shakhlo Sharipova (Thorncliffe Park Autism Support Network) and moderated by Eunice Wong (Monumental).
Whether you’re a long-time advocate or just starting your park journey, the Toronto Parks Summit is your space to learn about contemporary park issues. Because real change in our parks doesn’t start from the top down—it grows from the ground up.
And that’s why we summit.
Toronto Park Summit: Saturday, June 14, 2025, 12-6pm ET at Daniels Spectrum (585 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON), Tickets start from $5.
If you require a bursary for transportation or attendance, please reach out to Cynthia Hashie.
Join us and hundreds of park changemakers across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond.
Each year, we support 20 or more InTO the Ravines Champions, working in pairs, with training and support to help them host their own events in Toronto’s ravines.
Meet the 2026 Champions, and hear why they love and care about the ravines, and what the program means for them.
“We get to take time to commune together and frolic to the sounds of birds and running water and rustling leaves, with our friends, family and neighbours—there’s nothing better than that!”
“We believe that our future is deeply rooted in how we honor and listen to Mother Nature today. Becoming InTO the Ravines Champions is our way of creating a sanctuary of connection where people can pause, breathe, and remember their sacred bond with the wild earth. By fostering this deep intimacy with Toronto’s ravine systems, we aim to plant the seeds of collective care, breathing life into a more conscious, connected community that treasures the land as our ultimate home.”
“Nature is healing and the ravines help us to connect with nature in the city. Ravines remind us of the stretch and reach of water. A reminder that this land is truly all connected. A ravine is like a little escape that does not require a long car ride or a huge amount of planning. Once I am in the ravine, the calm and the quiet gives me space to think and enjoy a little bit of nature within the city.
I also love to see that the ravine is used by everyone…kids, families, pets, friends and solo visitors. It feels like community. Interacting with it ties us to the land as part of nature’s story.”
“Being an InTO the Ravines champion is important to me because I get the opportunity to learn more about our beautiful Ravines and then pass on said knowledge while sharing my love for nature. Knowledge Is Power so this will positively impact my community members who are not aware how our daily habits can harm our Ravines & nature on a whole. Seeing it firsthand through our nature related activity will also enhance the effect of what is verbally said to my community members.” Rasheida
“Nature, history and meditation – I would like to have an event where we talk about how the Ravines add to the ecological stability of the City, and why it is important for us to protect the Ravines” -Shanta
“As InTO the Ravines Champions, we are able to host events in the Ravine parks introducing the public to astronomy citizen science and stargazing from within the city. This also gives a chance for astronomy hobbyist in Scarborough that may not be able to make it to other stargazing events a chance to attend one.”
“We are excited to become InTO the Ravines Champions because it gives us the opportunity to connect with nature, learn more about Toronto’s ravines, and encourage others in our community to enjoy these beautiful spaces. We believe this program will benefit our community by promoting outdoor activity, environmental awareness, social connections, and greater access to natural spaces for people of all ages.”
“We’re excited to become InTO the Ravines Champions because we want to invite people to connect with others they might not normally cross paths with, and explore local green spaces they may not have spent time in before. We see ravines as places where both of those things can happen at once, helping strengthen people’s sense of connection with their neighbours, their community, and the public green spaces around them.”
Learn more about InTO the Ravines Champions the City of Toronto’s Ravine Strategy.
Large urban parks are critical spaces for city residents to build meaningful connections to nature and each other. We already know that people who engage in hands-on, nature-focused activities in parks experience powerful social connections; a sense of belonging, meaning and purpose in their lives; greater physical health; and overall life satisfaction. We need more parks that can lead by example in extending those benefits to equity-deserving communities across Canada.
This summer, Park People welcomes new partners into the Cornerstone Parks program. Everett Crowley Park & the Champlain Height Trails join founding parks High Park, Mount Royal and Stanley Park and new members: the Darlington Ecological Corridor and Meewasin Valley Authority. Together they hold space for nature in cities and demonstrate what’s possible for communities within large urban parks.
The Cornerstone Parks Reports on Stewardship and Park Use demonstrate that volunteer park stewardship makes people healthier and happier. Among the findings:
Unfortunately, these benefits aren’t equitably enjoyed:
The Canadian City Parks Report also found that post-pandemic, surveyed BIPOC Canadians became more interested in stewardship activities (70%) than white respondents (54%).
So what are the ongoing barriers to park stewardship for diverse communities? And who is helping to support those communities’ well-being by overcoming them?
In equity-deserving communities such as Champlain Heights in South Vancouver, B.C., park groups play a crucial role in supporting residents’ health and well-being. Champlain Heights contains a former city landfill and now boasts the fifth largest park in Vancouver, Everett Crowley. Everett Crowley is a 40-hectare park home to Avalon Pond and Kinross Creek, which provide critical habitats for birds, amphibians, fish, and other wildlife. The park and adjoining Champlain Heights trail system are part of the only 4% of native forest remaining in the city. Champlain Heights has hundreds of low-income, co-op, strata, and seniors’ housing units alongside some of the city’s oldest trees.
The City of Vancouver dedicated Everett Crowley Park in 1987 after lobbying by local residents. Those residents then created the Everett Crowley Park Committee (ECPC), a sub-committee of the Champlain Heights Community Association. The committee’s mission is to encourage stewardship of this resilient urban forest by hosting community stewardship events, outdoor education, and an annual Earth Day festival. In 2022, 306 volunteers contributed nearly 1,000 hours towards park stewardship, removing approximately 80 cubic meters of invasive plants.
Just east of Everett Crowley, another stewardship group is hard at work in the trail system that winds through Champlain Heights. In 2021, local residents noticed invasive plants taking over the trails. Together they formed Free the Fern. Like the ECPC, Free the Fern brings their community together through environmental stewardship activities such as invasive plant pulls and native planting events. Since 2021, their 277 volunteers have removed 50.33 tons of invasive plants. They’ve also planted over 1,300 native plants.
“Parks are not simply places of respite with grass and trees. They are critical pieces of the social infrastructure of our cities. We believe they have a role to play in creating more inclusive, equitable places shaped by and for the people living there.”Sparking Change Report
“Parks are not simply places of respite with grass and trees. They are critical pieces of the social infrastructure of our cities. We believe they have a role to play in creating more inclusive, equitable places shaped by and for the people living there.”
Sparking Change Report
Our Sparking Change Report suggests five ways of catalyzing social impact through parks, particularly in underserved neighbourhoods:
We spoke with Grace Nombrado, Executive Director of Free the Fern, to understand how these five factors appear in Champlain Heights.
Becoming involved in a local park can foster a sense of possibility, creating momentum for change that can galvanize others. One strategy for creating shared ownership is pairing park improvements with conversations about ongoing community involvement.
The Champlain Heights Community Centre is jointly operated by the Vancouver Park Board and the Champlain Heights Community Association (CHCA). The CHCA is also the steward of Everett Crowley Park. The community centre is a neighbourhood “anchor” that offers residents leisure activities and an entry point for involvement in the park and trails. Through community events, notice boards, and tool storage, the centre creates a relationship between the (indoor) resources available to community members and their potential to create change through improvements within the park, along the trails, and beyond.
Building skills and confidence through volunteering in the park can ripple outwards, leading to greater civic engagement. Hiring a community organizer from within the local neighbourhood can be a crucial support pillar for volunteers. This helps build capacity and ensure groups remain community-led.
As Free the Fern’s founder-turned-Executive Director, Grace is a passionate volunteer who recruits, coordinates, and supports fellow neighbourhood stewards. “All our current 9 board members live within the neighbourhood of Champlain Heights,” Grace notes.
“Most of our volunteers who attend our monthly pulls and fall planting live a short walk from the trail. This year, as part of our Native Food Forest project, we have incorporated outreach events so that the larger community can be informed and share their ideas with the project. We distribute flyers to townhouses adjacent to the trail and post them on local community Facebook groups. In addition, we have signage on the trail that directs people to our website to learn more and get involved with Free the Fern. It is so important that those living within this neighbourhood have a hand in stewarding the Champlain Heights Trail system.” Grace Nombrado, Executive Director of Free the Fern
“Most of our volunteers who attend our monthly pulls and fall planting live a short walk from the trail. This year, as part of our Native Food Forest project, we have incorporated outreach events so that the larger community can be informed and share their ideas with the project. We distribute flyers to townhouses adjacent to the trail and post them on local community Facebook groups. In addition, we have signage on the trail that directs people to our website to learn more and get involved with Free the Fern. It is so important that those living within this neighbourhood have a hand in stewarding the Champlain Heights Trail system.”
Grace Nombrado, Executive Director of Free the Fern
While improving a park’s physical infrastructure can invite more people to use it, what really brings a park to life are activities and events that engage people in meaningful ways. Park programming needs to be inclusive and representative of the local community.
“Inclusivity is a journey, one that will continue as long as you seek to understand and better serve your community,” Grace says. “I have learned so much about how to be more inclusive by listening to volunteers.” She cites stories of community members directly shaping Free the Fern’s inclusion practices: from purchasing extendable garden tools for wheelchair users and ergonomic tools for people with arthritis to offering free food and beverage for volunteers and ensuring all events remain free. Future plans include budgeting for babysitting at events and offering prepaid transit vouchers.
“Everyone deserves access to environmental education, no matter their financial situation.” Grace Nombrado
“Everyone deserves access to environmental education, no matter their financial situation.”
Grace Nombrado
Parks have a long history as democratic spaces, catalyzing interactions between people of different backgrounds. It’s important to recognize and remove barriers to those people working together. One strategy is for municipalities to review park oversight through an equity lens to ensure they are not creating obstacles–like a lack of clarity around park management and what’s permitted.
“When people ask me, ‘Is this city land?’, I say, ‘Yes, and WE are the city.’ We, as citizens, should see park spaces as spaces for all of us. Spaces for us to gather and spaces for us to care and connect with the land.” Grace Nombrado
“When people ask me, ‘Is this city land?’, I say, ‘Yes, and WE are the city.’ We, as citizens, should see park spaces as spaces for all of us. Spaces for us to gather and spaces for us to care and connect with the land.”
Grace talks about balancing the initial fear of breaking city rules with a determination to be transparent. Free the Fern formed when diverse citizens decided to steward the land together. The city was not sure what to do to support the group. Should they set safety guidelines? Who in the city should oversee the group? Just as the process seemed to be getting tangled in red tape, Free the Fern decided to invite the city workers on a tour of the trail. Walking past hundreds of ferns, Oregon grapes, huckleberries and Douglas firs, the city workers were impressed that local citizens had accomplished so much on their own. The city pledged full support for Free the Fern’s stewardship effort.
The economic effect of parks is often spoken about in terms of increasing property values. This sometimes sparks concerns about gentrification. However, parks can offer many benefits to people living in the community–including leverage.
“Champlain Heights [is] an experimental mixed-income neighbourhood built in the late ‘70s,” Grace explains. “Rather than single-family homes, the city chose to build townhouse complexes here–a mix of strata, co-op, low-income, and senior townhouses… Many of these co-op townhouse leases are coming to the end of their term. There is a concern if the city will renew leases or if they will choose to redevelop our neighbourhood, perhaps to include towers for higher density levels.”
“The Champlain Heights trail system, a strip of the original Douglas fir forest, is also on leasehold land and not protected from development. One of the best ways citizens can protect the trail from development is to steward it. By removing the invasive plants and replanting native plants, we show that the trail system is a thriving, biodiverse ecosystem rather than a hazardous area. By connecting as a community and volunteering, we also increase the connections with each other and future chances for advocating in the neighbourhood as leases run out. With our thriving, diverse community, we have proved that this ‘experimental’ neighbourhood of Champlain Heights works.”
Volunteer park stewardship has the potential to make all people healthier and happier. However, our ability to extend these benefits to equity-deserving communities like Champlain Heights relies on reducing barriers to engagement. Free the Fern and the Everett Crowley Park Committee are critical additions to Cornerstone Parks, as they demonstrate what’s possible in their neighbourhood.
Cornerstone Parks lead by example. They offer opportunities for people of all identities, ages, languages, and abilities to pursue health and happiness through park stewardship. Read the Cornerstone Parks Reports to understand how park stewardship makes us happier and healthier. And follow our new partners, Free the Fern and the ECPC, as they demonstrate how you can better support your equity-deserving communities.