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!
Creative ways to connect people to nature, community, and care for ravines in Toronto.
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.
In East Vancouver’s Champlain Heights, we sat down with two organizations leading a grassroots effort to restore native forests and build community.
Discover how Arts in the Parks is transforming Toronto’s green spaces into vibrant hubs of creativity—and how Park People helps make it all possible.
In 2025, 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.
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.
Each year, Park People Summits bring together our growing network of urban park changemakers to connect, reflect, and explore what’s possible for more inclusive, community-powered parks in our cities.
Meet the 2025 InTO the Ravines Champions, and hear why they love and care about the ravines.
Explore inspiring community-led events funded by our microgrants program, from land-based learning to nature walks and skill-sharing workshops.
As Dave Harvey retires from his co-leadership position at Park People, he reflects on the incredible journey since founding the organization in 2011.
Park People is thrilled to announce that Erika Nikolai will transition from Co-Executive Director to sole Executive Director, effective July 1.
Discover our new partners within our growing national network of Cornerstone Parks: the Edmonton River Valley Conservation Coalition, Toronto Botanical Garden and Ecology Action Centre.
Motivated to make a difference, Geneviève envisioned a sustainable response to address hunger in her community: a living and educational agriculture ecosystem composed of three urban gardens.
Recognizing the need, and with support from Park People, VUFF envisioned a food forest as a haven for urban indigenous communities and low-income residents.
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.
The efforts to scrap the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation will take away from much-needed work to meet the park needs of the city’s communities.
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.
Alexandre Beaudoin discusses the socio-ecological approach that guides the Darlington Ecological Corridor in Montreal.
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.
This summer, Park People welcomes new partners into the Cornerstone Parks program. Everett Crowley Park & the Champlain Height Trails. Together they hold space for nature in cities and demonstrate what’s possible for communities within large urban parks.
How Maggie is helping her community dip into and see the green spaces and ravines.
With the Park People Conference quickly approaching in June, we caught up with keynote speaker Dave Meslin. Dave is a…
In her recent presentation at the 2022 Park People Conference, Akiima Price called herself a “nature-based social worker,” quickly followed…
How parks can help rebuild civic trust and engagement in the face of declining municipal participation.
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.
We met with Elder Catherine Brooks to talk about the Indigenous People’s Solidarity Group, reconciliation and moving toward building a better future together.
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.
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.
What the Turtle Protectors can tell us about two important Indigenous knowledge principles that can shape how we engage with nature and one another.
We met with Betty Lepps, Vancouver Park Board’s Director of Urban Relationships, to talk about homelessness in parks.
Inform a future national network of urban parks: 9 takeaways to ensure parks are inclusive, accessible and welcoming.
Hear what Lewis Cardinal has to say about creating and maintaining connections and relationships that cross cultural divides.
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.
How a butterfly trail grew into a 16-kilometre linear park of continuous greenspace and meadows, linking downtown Toronto to Rouge National Urban Park.
How Vancouver has transformed underused park fieldhouses into community hubs by offering residencies to artists and organizations that engage the public through creative, cultural, and environmental programming.
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.
Green spaces help reduce the urban heat island effect. But not every park is the same: size, shape, and connectivity have big impacts on their heat-mitigating powers.
A little-known natural area in Montreal’s west end became the future Grand parc de l’Ouest thanks to decades of community-led advocacy.
Flyover Park materializes the vision of a group of engaged residents who dared to think outside the box and reclaim an underutilized space full of potential.
Park People is excited to be launching Cornerstone Parks, the first-of-its-kind national collaboration to revitalize the green infrastructure of the country’s largest urban parks and celebrate their incomparable value to overall wellbeing.
Learn more about the transformation of the historic Arbutus rail corridor into a community-driven greenway that reimagines industrial land as a people-focused urban park connecting neighbourhoods and nature.
Get some advice from experts to kick off your winter bird adventures.
The concept of Nordicity invites us to rethink our relationship with winter—embracing the season through outdoor experiences, shifting our perceptions, and designing cities and parks that celebrate life in the cold.
Learn more about Black history of Toronto’s Humber River, the ravine, and Jean Augustine Park.
How CAP Jarry invited all Montreal residents to bring their old Christmas trees and create a magical Ephemeral Forest.