Park People’s Executive Director, Erika Nikolai, has been honoured with the Distinguished Individual Award from World Urban Parks—an international recognition that celebrates her leadership and the growing national movement Park People has helped build here in Canada.
Why are events in parks important? How do grants fit into Park People’s larger goals for creating change in city parks?
The emerging stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund provides up to $5,000 to grassroots and registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature, foster ecological stewardship, and restore urban parks and green spaces.
The scaling stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund offers up to $20,000 to registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature while fostering ecological stewardship and restoring urban parks.
Learn more about green social prescribing, an evolving practice that encourages individuals to reestablish connections with nature and one another to enhance their mental, physical, and social wellbeing.
A reflection on the BEING BLACK IN PUBLIC Survey Report, exploring how Black communities experience parks and public spaces, and what fosters joy and belonging.
How do we build a healthier, greener, more joyful Toronto? We start at the park. Discover how communities across the city have transformed their green spaces over the past fifteen years. Then roll up your sleeves and help shape what comes next.
By donating to Park People, you’ll support vibrant parks for everyone.
Looking for a specific park topic? Search our comprehensive learning library.
Our library is still under construction, there’s more to come soon!
Explore key findings from five years of the Canadian City Parks Report, highlighting significant trends, issues, and practices shaping urban parks across the country.
Learn more about Park People’s Sparking Change and 8 80 Cities’ Ontario Community Changemakers programs, and how they empower communities to transform parks across Ontario.
Meet the Ontario Community Changemakers and learn more about their inspiring initiatives transforming parks across the province.
A guidance and resources to measure the impact of your park work on community health and wellbeing, integrating a social equity lens.
Discover the impact of the Sparking Change program in Toronto on community health, equity, human-nature connection, and ecological integrity.
Each year, we support inspiring older adults in Metro Vancouver to reconnect with nature by leading events in their local parks—sparking belonging, joy, and wellness in their communities.
Watch our special launch webinar with the Report’s authors to get the inside scoop on our findings.
How does the City of Victoria’s Get Growing Victoria program take a food justice approach to provide gardening supplies to communities at risk of food insecurity, including those experiencing houselessness, Indigenous and racialized communities, seniors, and youth.
How Waterfront Toronto is raising the bar on inclusivity through their Waterfront Accessibility Design Guidelines.
How an agreement between the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and Metro Vancouver Regional Parks provides a path for shared cultural planning.
How can municipalities move from awareness to action? A conversation with Jay Pitter about Black people’s experiences in parks and public spaces.
How the park sector can meet today’s complex challenges through partnerships and collaboration.
Here are some valuable tips to create a welcoming, safe, and respectful environment for participants of all abilities, backgrounds, ages, and gender identities!
As Dave Harvey retires from his co-leadership position at Park People, he reflects on the incredible journey since founding the organization in 2011.
Driven by a passion to help, Nawal co-founded Flemingdon Community Support Services, a volunteer-led organization which help the community access food, housing and employment.
Watch the webinar recording to meet the report’s researchers and writers and get the inside scoop on the fifth annual report highlighting the most significant trends, issues, and practices shaping Canada’s city parks.
How Addressing Conflict and Reframing Challenges as Opportunities Can Create More Equitable and Sustainable Parks.
How the City of North Vancouver is working to better engage equity-deserving groups in its longstanding Park Stewards program, including people who are underhoused, newcomers, and at-risk youth.
Public washrooms are a park necessity.. Discover Edmonton’s approach to creating safe, inclusive public washrooms.
Explore the impacts of large urban parks on communities’ connectedness to nature and–by extension–their health and happiness.
As Toronto’s mayoral by-election approaches, we urge candidates to help build a more equitable, resilient future for city parks by supporting the ideas in this platform.
What it really means to invite communities into nature – a conversation with Camara Chambers from Let’s Hike T.O.
How colonialism plays out in park practices and how we can work together to embed reconciliation and decolonization.
As Toronto faces upcoming municipal elections, we urge candidates for Mayor and Council to accelerate the transition to a more equitable, resilient future for city parks by working with us on the ideas presented in this platform.
How BIPOC park leaders are centring conversations of justice and power in parks
Abundance, the theme of Park People’s 2022 Conference, is an invitation to radically reimagine city parks. It will focus on our collective attention on the transformational park work, charting a new path forward in cities.
How growing and harvesting food is a powerful pathway to cultivating community and ecological resilience.
Meet the report’s researchers and writers and get the inside scoop on the fourth annual report featuring the biggest trends, issues, and practices shaping Canada’s city parks.
We met with Betty Lepps, Vancouver Park Board’s Director of Urban Relationships, to talk about homelessness in parks.
Examining Prairie cities’ efforts to decolonize park spaces and honour the Indigenous histories of the land they are built upon
How park engagement can lay the foundation for relationships that last well beyond the end of a consultation period
The unique opportunity of parks departments to play a positive role in addressing houselessness
How collaboration, mindfulness, and power-sharing in parks can help nurture and repair relationships between ourselves, our communities, and the wider natural world.
Inform a future national network of urban parks: 9 takeaways to ensure parks are inclusive, accessible and welcoming.
Discover some of the content that has resonated with Park People over the past years, highlighting works that contribute to centering Black liberation in planning, designing, and managing parks and public spaces.
Stewardship activities, nature mindfulness, embedding sports into nature programs…Learn how the Meewasin Valley Authority in Saskatoon fosters nature connectedness in its urban park.
Discover how stakeholders collaborated to design the country’s first urban Indigenous cultural site.
Explore the barriers and opportunities for creating parks as natural places for engagement across differences.
Previously just a neglected space with broken fences, Mabelle Park is now a vibrant park that brings together residents, many of them newcomers to Canada, low-income families, and seniors.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, increased surveillance and bylaw enforcement in parks created unequal barriers to access, especially for marginalized and unhoused people.
Watch the webinar recording to meet the report’s researchers and writers and get the inside scoop on the third annual report highlighting the most significant trends, issues, and practices shaping Canada’s city parks.
How using an environmental justice lens can help tackle climate change resilience and inequity in parks.
How parks can help create more equitable, resilient cities—not only as we recover from COVID-19, but as we address another looming crisis: climate change.
Learn more about Black history of Toronto’s Humber River, the ravine, and Jean Augustine Park.
Explore the relationship between public space, race, and systems of oppression in the public realm.
Explore reports, articles, toolkits, and webinars on racism and inequality in public spaces, with insights to address systemic barriers in parks and urban settings.
David MacLeod, Senior Environmental Specialist with the City of Toronto, and Carbon Conversations TO explore how ravines mitigate climate impacts and the steps we must take to protect them.
Explore how we can deepen our connection to the plants and animals of our land and ravines.
How urban biodiversity improves our well-being and why that matters even more during COVID-19.
Trends, challenges, and leading practices in Canadian cities to inspire action, share learning, and track progress in city parks across the country.
Learn how park groups can support reconciliation and decolonization by creating meaningful land acknowledgements.
Park People launches the first Canadian City Parks Report, highlighting park trends, challenges, and leading practices in Canadian cities.
Social impacts of communities in underserved neighbourhoods becoming involved in animating and improving their local park.