We are looking for a Finance Specialist and a Manager of Administration in the Greater Toronto Area.
TD Park People Grants support local leaders to organize environmental education, sustainability or stewardship events that bring people together across Canada.
A guidance and resources to measure the impact of your park work on community health and wellbeing, integrating a social equity lens.
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.
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By donating to Park People, you’ll support vibrant parks for everyone.
In this permanent, full-time role (35 hours/week), you will support financial operations and bookkeeping at Park People. Reporting to the Director of Operations, you will be responsible for accounts payable and receivable, revenue reconciliation, budget tracking, and assisting with financial insights that support organizational decision-making and fiscal sustainability. This is a new role.
Park People works to advance city parks as essential spaces to connect people to each other and the rest of nature. For more information about Park People, please visit our website at https://parkpeople.ca/.
We are committed to advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA) across our workplaces and programs, which includes removing barriers for individuals with disabilities and fostering inclusive environments where everyone can thrive. We strongly encourage applications from BIPOC individuals and members of other equity-deserving communities.
As Finance Specialist, your role will include:
The skills and experience you bring to the role include:
Location: This position is based in Toronto and is a hybrid in-person and remote position. You must be available to work out of our space at 401 Richmond St. W a minimum of 2 days per week.
Salary: $60,000-$68,000
Anticipated Start Date: Late January 2026 (flexible)
Park People is a great place to work:
Please send your resume and cover letter in one electronic file in confidence by January 8, 2026 to hr@parkpeople.ca. If you require accommodation in order to participate in the recruitment process, please contact us at hr@parkpeople.ca to provide your contact information.
In this permanent, full-time role (35 hours/week), you will manage office operations and administrative workflows, provide assistance to Park people’s leadership team, and play a critical role in optimizing the smooth execution of organizational policies, HR administration, and internal procedures. We are looking for an exemplary manager who is an experienced administrator and can oversee internal workflow management for a national, bilingual organization. This is a new position.
Park People works to advance city parks as essential spaces to connect people to each other and nature. Please visit our website at https://parkpeople.ca/
In this role, you will:
Location: This position is located in Toronto and requires a minimum of four days per week in an office environment. Some evening and weekend work may be required.
Salary: $65,000-$75,000
Anticipated Start Date: January 2025
Parks and public spaces are places where communities connect, imagine, and thrive. In this two-part blog series, we explore programs we champion with our partner, 8 80 Cities, that support local leaders in reimaging and activating parks across Ontario. From mentorship and funding to creative activations, these programs show how trust, support, and imagination spark meaningful change.
Walk through any city in Canada, and you’ll find them: parks and public spaces.
These spaces are the commons, the connecting space for community, the places where neighbours meet for the first time, where celebrations unfold, a place for democracy, and where we escape the hustle and bustle of city life to connect with nature. They’re where kids learn to ride bikes, where friends meet for picnics, and where you might just stumble into something unexpected.
Park People and 8 80 Cities share a simple but powerful belief: parks and public spaces are more than patches of grass or trails through trees. They are part of the city’s social fabric. They are places where belonging is practiced, where we learn to live alongside one another, and where we imagine something better together.
When people feel a sense of ownership over their parks and public spaces, everything changes.
Benches get painted, gardens take root, and lanterns are lit. Entire herds of papier-mâché giraffes parade through neighbourhoods. Parks and public spaces become mirrors, reflecting the life and creativity of the community around them.
That belief is at the heart of two programs we’re proud to lead alongside our friends at 8 80 Cities, and with the generous support of the Balsam Foundation: the Sparking Change program (Park People) and the Ontario Community Changemakers microgrant and leadership program (8 80 Cities).
Our long-standing partnership is rooted in the vision that parks are most vibrant when shaped by the people who use them. While Park People focuses on connecting and supporting community leaders to animate and care for their local parks, 8 80 Cities brings a placemaking lens and their signature principle: If a city works for an eight-year-old and an eighty-year-old, it works for everyone.
Together, we champion community-driven urbanism, supporting local community leaders who transform spaces into places of belonging. Through these programs, grassroots groups and individuals continue to animate their communities and drive local change, often well beyond the programs themselves.
Together, we’ve seen how this alignment of vision translates into real impact: Park People’s community networks and mentorship pair seamlessly with 8 80 Cities’ Ontario Community Changemakers program, which equips leaders with funding, training, and a peer network. Many participants move between both programs, carrying forward skills, ideas, and partnerships that ripple into parks and neighbourhoods and impactful change across the province.
We know that lasting change happens when cities, community members, and non-profit partners work together toward a shared vision. By combining their strengths, we can amplify the impact of our public spaces.
Park People’s Sparking Change program centres building capacity, offering mentorship, and removing barriers so those connected to their parkspaces can shape it in ways that matter most to them. Park People asks: What could this park be if it truly reflected the people who use it? Then we provide the tools, coaching, networks, and seed funding to make that vision real.
The projects that grow out of Sparking Change take many forms: story-sharing circles, cultural festivals, trauma-informed ravine hikes, community gardens, park clean-ups, environmental stewardship days, art installations, youth-led gardening programs, and neighbourhood celebrations. All are locally led. All emerge from the creativity, care, and knowledge of the people who know their park best. And all, in their way, show what is possible when communities are given the trust and support to lead in their public spaces.
8 80 Cities’ Ontario Community Changemakers (OCC) program takes a similar approach. The program gives participants a year of mentorship, peer learning, and project funding to make a big idea happen in their community.
Over 2024 and forward, 8 80 Cities recently opened the program to people of all ages, reflecting that creativity, energy, and vision aren’t bound by age. That change means more voices, perspectives, and chances for public spaces to be shaped by the people who care about them most.
Many Sparking Change leaders have also been Changemakers, with both programs playing a key role in supporting their growth and impact.
Mehedi Khan and Igor Samardzic are strong examples; through both their fellowship years, they gained tools, mentorship, and connections that helped them advance their Muslims in Public Space initiative with their co-lead, Linda Selam. These programs provided the platform to deepen their work, from making parks and plazas more inclusive for Muslim communities to celebrating Islamic culture in public spaces.
With ongoing support from Park People, 8 80 Cities, and collaborators like PlazaPOPS, they have been able to launch and sustain projects such as Tower POPS, where they are helping to transform underused spaces around high-rise towers into welcoming, active public places for people in Toronto and Mississauga.
On top of all their community and cultural leadership, Mehedi and Igor managed the 2025 city-wide Jane’s Walk Toronto Festival, inviting the city to “walk with us” and celebrate the stories of its neighbourhoods.
Read Part 2 to meet the changemakers shaping Ontario’s parks and see the creative ways they’re transforming their communities.
At the heart of every project is trust in community and the belief that amazing things can happen in public space with a little spark, a little funding, and some truly incredible changemakers.
Park People’s Sparking Change program trusts communities to lead. The 8 80 Cities Ontario Community Changemakers program trusts individuals to turn vision into action.
When people have the tools and support they need, they can transform neighbourhoods, parks, and public spaces into places of connection and belonging. It creates space for imagination, brings communities together across generations, and inspires community members to animate parks, ravines, hydro corridors, and all the spaces in between.
It allows culture to be celebrated in comfort and joy to ripple through public spaces. Most of all, it helps people build stronger and more connected communities across Ontario.
We are deeply grateful to the Balsam Foundation for believing in people, for championing ideas that don’t always fit neatly into a box, and for helping grow a network of leaders who are shaping the future of parks and public spaces across Ontario.
The 2025 Ontario Community Changemakers have officially been announced! Meet these inspiring leaders and follow their projects as they bring new ideas, energy, and creativity to parks and public spaces across Ontario. Start thinking about applying for microgrants, leadership training, and mentorship from Park People and 8 80 Cities to launch your own inclusive public space or park project in 2026.
Read Part 1 to learn more about the vision behind Park People’s Sparking Change and 8 80 Cities’ Ontario Community Changemakers (OCC) programs.
In Thunder Bay, Nancy Angus, founder of Age BIG, used her time as an Ontario Community Changemaker to create Park Your Stories. This project brought older adults and high school students together to transform city benches into painted gathering spots.
Students built portable wooden chairs and even crafted a custom metal medallion for the project. The result was a mobile, joyful story circle that has popped up in gardens, conservation areas, and senior living facilities, bringing intergenerational connection, people together, and people closer to nature.
“People of all ages talking, knitting, painting, playing. Trees. Plenty of places to sit. Clean. Safe. Free.” is how Nancy describes her vision for a welcoming park.
“Occasionally, animating a park can bring people there who have never been before, and that’s a win, because they’ll come back.”
Nancy Angus, OCC program participant
In Waterloo, another Ontario Community Changemaker, Hannah Gardiner, was inspired by the memory of zoologist Dr. Anne Innis Dagg to create a unique activation of her local park: a Giraffe Parade. Twenty-five papier-mâché giraffe heads, built by neighbours, wound through the park in a joyful procession.
It was whimsical, intensely local, and wildly inspiring. Since then, the Giraffe Parade has sparked other “microparades,” bursts of neighbourhood creativity that can be as playful as they are powerful.
This year, with a TD Park People Grant, Hannah is building on her Changemaker experience to create a bubble procession, a lantern parade, and even karaoke in the park. Proof that the skills, confidence, and connections from the OCC program carry far beyond the original funding and opportunities.
“Building off of this special parade, my goal for my Changemakers project was to show, and through showing, encourage other people to host their microparades.”
Hannah Gardiner, OCC program participant, Waterloo.
“I was thrilled when one of the Changemakers, Nithya Vijayakumar, and Angry Locals Toronto put on a parade this spring to draw attention to infrastructure in their community. A friend recently sent me a video of students hosting a Trout Parade in Vermont.”
For Hannah, inspiring people is just one part of the vision. “The other part of my project is focused on making it easier for people, anyone, to host these kinds of small, community-focused events in parks here in Waterloo Region,” she says.
Hannah is working on a mini “how-to guide” that will pull together resources the public can use to make their own events happen. She’s been meeting with the City of Waterloo, Park People, and local community groups to figure out how to break down barriers.
“I feel really lucky to live in a city with a very community-minded mayor like Mayor Dorothy McCabe, who has encouraged me during this project,” Hannah adds.
“I think Park People’s success with the City of Toronto in waiving fees for community events in parks is a really big win for community building, and I hope that the City of Waterloo can draw inspiration from that in their new park plan.”
Another project from 2024 began with a simple but powerful vision from Ontario Community Changemaker Rignam Wangkhang.
Outside the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre in Etobicoke, Toronto, he saw families and seniors gathering in parking lots or spilling into busy streets during cultural events. Across the road sat an overgrown hydro corridor, unused and full of possibility.
“I imagined a place where kids could play safely, elders could rest in the shade, and the community could celebrate without fear. It felt like the space was just waiting for us to bring it to life.”
Rignam Wangkhang, OCC program participant, Toronto.
From the very start, Rignam involved the community in shaping that vision. Local events revealed how deeply people wanted this change: a safe, welcoming space that reflects their culture, needs, and pride. What began as one person’s idea quickly became a shared mission.
Through the 8 80 Cities’ Ontario Community Changemakers program, Rignam has found a network of people who believe in bold ideas.
“It’s one thing to dream about change, but it’s another to have others trust you to make it real.”
That trust, in community and collective imagination, can help turn an empty hydro corridor into a safe, vibrant space the whole neighbourhood can call its own.
Another past ravine and hydro corridor lover, Nithursan Elamuhilan, has been heavily involved in the Park People Network and the 8 80 Cities program.
Born and raised in Scarborough, Nithursan is an emerging visual storyteller whose work blends photography, community connection, and a deep commitment to place. He first launched itsneerby with support from the Ontario Community Changemaker program, using it as a platform to document and share stories of Scarborough’s neighbourhoods.
Since then, he has become an active leader in the local arts and public space sectors, contributing to community events with NGOs, serving as a past board member of 8 80 Cities, and volunteering regularly with Park People.
Nithursan has participated in numerous Scarborough initiatives, including Scarborough Made, and has led public events such as a photowalk for a past Jane’s Walk Festival. His photography has celebrated and documented public spaces, such as The Meadoway, a major urban greenway project, and his work has been featured in exhibitions across Toronto, including group shows at the CONTACT Photography Festival.
Through his art and advocacy, Nithursan continues to highlight Scarborough’s cultural richness, resilience, and evolving landscapes, building connections between people, place, and the stories that shape them. He documents and advocates for future infrastructure reuse of a rail line into a trail for the community to readapt and reuse.
These are just a few examples of the incredible leaders behind programs that nurture grassroots initiatives, spark change, and provide vital support to community projects. Through partnerships between 8 80 Cities and Park People, these leaders have been given the tools and trust to turn creative visions into public-space reality.
Across all of these efforts, local leaders backed by a network, community and NGOs that believe in their ideas are reshaping parks and public spaces across Ontario. Together, we are building places where communities can see themselves and both people and nature can thrive.
Public areas like parks, ravines, and other greenspaces have become crucial during a growing period of isolation, inequality, and climate anxiety. They provide a space for healing, connection, and growth, in addition to a place to play, rest, and get fresh air. Parks offer a chance to reclaim space, foster a sense of community, and inspire local leadership for many groups, particularly those that are historically underrepresented in decision-making processes.
Community members are converting their local parks into vibrant hubs of connection, joy, and action; that spirit is celebrated in this report. It draws attention to the value of community-driven transformation and grassroots leadership in our common green areas.
Through an evaluation of the Sparking Change Toronto program Park People aimed to understand the impact of the program in four key areas outlined in Park People’s Theory of Change:
Discover the impact of the Sparking Change program in Toronto.
In this permanent, full-time role (35 hours/week), you will be part of a team supporting financial operations at Park People. Reporting to the Director of Operations, you will be responsible for accounts payable and receivable, revenue reconciliation, budget tracking, and assisting with financial insights that support organizational decision-making and fiscal sustainability.
Park People works to advance city parks as essential spaces to connect people to each other and the rest of nature. For more information about Park People, please visit our Who We Are page.
The position has been filled.
As Finance Coordinator your role will include:
A few other things that aren’t required but would make you a better fit…
Location: This position is based in Toronto and is a hybrid in-person and remote position. You must be available to work out of our space at 401 Richmond St. W.
Salary: $58,000-$68,000
Anticipated Start Date: Mid-October 2025 or as soon as possible. This is a new position.
Please send your resume and cover letter in one electronic file in confidence by Sept 19th, 2025 to hr@parkpeople.ca. We will be reviewing applications as they come in, so you are encouraged to get your application in quickly. If you require accommodation in order to participate in the recruitment process, please contact us at hr@parkpeople.ca to provide your contact information.
We are hiring a project manager based in the Greater Toronto area. In these permanent full-time roles, you will join Park People’s dynamic programming team to help strengthen community involvement in urban parks across the Park People network in major Canadian cities, including supporting programs delivered in the City of Toronto.
We are looking for a bilingual project manager with experience working across an extensive network of stakeholders, administering granting programs and research projects (e.g., skills and knowledge in public life studies, quantitative and qualitative data analysis), and delivering events.
As a Project Manager of Networks and Partnerships, you will plan and execute the delivery of TD Park People grants and support Park People’s national network of park leaders, research projects, and events. This includes developing, maintaining, and strengthening relationships and activities with Park People’s network members and partners in Toronto and other major Canadian cities.
This role is key in leading research activities, including public life studies and surveys, interviews, focus groups, or evaluation-related activities, on-site and remote.
You will support Park Friends groups and organizations by providing event organization support and organizational development assistance, and co-developing resources, toolkits, and capacity-building opportunities with communities.
A few other things that aren’t required but would be an asset in either role:
Park People supports and mobilizes community park groups, community organizers, non-profits, park professionals, and funders to activate the power of parks to build strong communities, healthy environments, and resilient cities.
We are actively working to hire, meaningfully engage with, and include guidance and input from Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour in ways that centre intersectionality, Indigenous resilience, and anti-racist principles. We are committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in our workspaces and programs, and encourage applications from BIPOC candidates.
Park People is a great place to work
Location: We will consider candidates based in the Toronto Area or GTA, and we are open to a blend of remote and in-person/onsite days in a typical work week.
Salary Range: $50,000 – $60,000
Anticipated Start Date: Mid-August 2025
Please send your resume and cover letter in one electronic file by July 8, 2025, to hr@parkpeople.ca and indicate which role you are applying for. If you would like to be considered for both positions, please submit one application and indicate your interest in both positions in your cover letter.
If you require accommodation to participate in the recruitment process, please contact us at hr@parkpeople.ca to provide your contact information.
We are seeking a community builder with experience organizing community outreach activities and events, delivering high-impact programs, and a breadth of knowledge of Toronto’s municipal and non-profit landscape. This role is about building relationships, championing community voices, and delivering impactful programs that animate local parks across Toronto.
As a Project Manager with the Toronto Park People team, you will lead and support the delivery of community-based projects, including our micro-granting programs like Sparking Change, InTO the Ravines, Arts in the Parks, and other citywide programs, and our local Park network that supports grassroots park groups.
You will work closely with local park groups, community leaders, municipal staff, and non-profit partners to turn parks, ravines, and public spaces into vibrant hubs for connection, care, culture, and civic participation.
You’ll play a key role in amplifying community knowledge and supporting local park groups as they animate Toronto’s urban parks and contribute to our communications and strategic efforts, ensuring alignment of local efforts with national goals and strategic plans.
This position is ideal for a creative, organized, collaborative person passionate about parks and committed to equity, justice, and community-led change.
The successful candidate will bring a substantial equity and trauma-informed lens, familiarity with Toronto’s municipal and non-profit sectors, and a deep understanding that parks are not just green infrastructure, but platforms for grassroots leadership, collective joy, and local resilience.