Civic Impact

Second Harvest wants your lunch money

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Second Harvest is asking Torontonians for their lunch money.

Starting next Monday Feburary 25th, Second Harvest will roll out their annual week-long Lunch Money Days fundraising campaign. The initiative encourages city workers to donate the equivalent of their lunch money to Second Harvest--for every $10 donation, Second Harvest can provide 20 healthy meals for those in need.

On February 28th, hundreds of Second Harvest volunteers will be at TTC stations collecting individual donations. The food-rescue organization has also teamed up with businesses and schools who will host their own lunch money fundraising events.

And, as with past years, Second Harvest will complement their fundraising efforts with a number of food-related events throughout the week.

This year's feature event is lunchtime food festival at Yonge and Dundas Square. On February 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 15 local restaurants will be offering snack-sized dishes ranging for $3 to $5.

"We've been doing the Yonge-Dundas Sqaure event for three years now," says Katherine Moffat, interim director of communications with Second Harvest. "All of the food will be donated by these vendors. So people will buy tickets, which will essentially be a donation to Second Harvest, and they can take the tickets and trade them in for whatever food they would like."

"There's been a lot of enthusiasm for this event and we're definitely in expansion mode. Last year we had eight vendors, so we're almost doubling in size."

Local Toronto businesses are also getting involved in the February fund-raising campaign. On February 27, from 12 to 2 p.m. the Calphalon Culinary Center will host a public lunch in-store for a minimum $5 donation. On February 28, Salad King's Yonge Street location will donate all the day's proceeds to Second Harvest. And, for the whole month of February, Dufflet's Pastries will donate $1 to Second Harvest for every Cowboy Cookie sold.

Thanks to the success of the February fundraiser, Second Harvest, says Moffat, is working "to expand the campaign into a year-long event."

"We’ve recruited over 200 corporate and community groups to do fundraising. We don’t dictate how they raise the money, you could do anything from having a bake sale to a disco party (like one our fundraisers did). These fundraisers really help to supplement the fundraising work we do during February."

Last year's campaign Lunch Money Days raised enough funds to provide 675,000 meals.

Second Harvest, a Toronto food-rescue program founded in 1985, picks up food that would otherwise be discarded--but is nonetheless edible and nutritional--and delivers it to more than 200 agencies across the Toronto

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Katherine Moffat, Interim Director of Communications, Second Harvest

Private donation will help Riverdale Farm raise up to $50,000

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The W. Garfeild Weston Foundation, a private family foundation, has promised to match every dollar up to $25,000 that community members raise to support Toronto's Riverdale Farm.

The news of the donation came this past Monday in an announcement made at the farm by Councilor Norm Kelly (Ward 40 Scarborough-Agincourt), chair of Toronto's Parks and Environment Committee, and Andrew Sorbara, vice-chair of the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation (the City foundation that receives support for City parks projects).

The donation comes at an especially important moment for the city-run farm; its future has been in jeopardy since 2011 when a city-sponsored KPMG report suggested the city cease the farm's funding.

Located at 201 Winchester Street, Riverdale Farm has long been a Toronto institution and is the only place in Toronto where the public can visit farm animals for free and all year round.

In response to pressure to do away with the farm, the Riverdale Farm Coalition successfully pitched a business plan to city council: the farm will slowly become self-sufficient, subsisting off donations and fundraising, while the city continues to fund them, at a decreasing rate, through the transition.

The Weston Foundation donation, as well as the money raised in the community, will go directly to newly formed Riverdale Farm Stewardship Group in their effort to achieve long-term stability for the farm.

"We are confident that this donation will go a long way toward building a sustainable funding base for this important community resource," said Cynthia MacDougall, Chair of Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation at the press conference. "We thank the W. Garfield Weston Foundation for this generous support."

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: City of Toronto

Evergreen and TDSB release design guide for kindergarten outdoor play spaces

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Since its launch in 1991, Evergreen Canada has helped over 3,000 schools green their school grounds, the result has been the proliferation of usable and safe outdoor spaces for kids.

Now, Evergreen has consolidated some of that 14-years of expertise in a brand new guide outlining best practices for designing outdoor play spaces for kindergarten-aged children.

The guide, Child Development and Landscape: A Design Guide for Early Years-Kindergarten OutdoorPlay, is the result of an Evergreen collaboration with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

"Our collaboration with the TDSB goes back many many years," says Anthony Westenberg of Evergreen's communication outreach department. "Based on our work with the TDSB, we realized there was a need for this guide to speed up uptake of the design principals we'd learned."

The guide, which was spearheaded by Evergreen’s Senior Designer, Heidi Campbel, highlights best practices from Evergreen's own work naturalizing school playgrounds, as well as outlining findings from facility managers, teachers and landscape architects across Canada.

"Given that most provinces in Canada are now offering full-day kindergarten, thinking about natural play environments is even more important," says Westenberg. "Working with the TDSB we wanted to show how outdoor learning places for kindergarten kids are very important and that there are lots of benefits to connecting with nature."

"Outdoor play spaces are often worked into the curriculum. So science teachers will take the kids outside and do science-based learning. The arts teacher will take the students outside and do some arts-based learning. So it's about creating play spaces and also outdoor classrooms."

The guide was officially published yesterday morning at a public event at the Evergreen Brickworks.

"We're really hoping people will be able to take the information in the guide and run with their own initiatives on the ground," says Westenberg.

The full report is expected to be up on the Evergreen website by early next week.

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Anthony Westenberg, communication outreach department, Evergreen

Toronto Hydro partners with Toronto Real Estate Board to launch Homeowners Kit

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

When Toronto Hydro launched the My Torontohydro online portal last year, homeowners were given one-stop access to all their Hydro information, from account details to outstanding bills.

But while the portal gives homeowners access to all the information they know they need, Toronto Hydro is still looking for ways to disseminate all those resources customers don't know they don't know.

"What do you do when you're moving? How do landlords access unit consumption records? These are all things homeowners need to know, but they may not be sure where to find that information," says Toronto Hyrdo spokesperson Tanya Bruckmueller.

In an effort to get the word out on all of their services, Toronto Hydro has teamed up with the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), to release the Homeowners Kit.

The Homeowners Kit is an online manual that outlines all kinds of Toronto Hyrdo information useful to new and existing homeowners. It also provides Toronto realtors with a bank of information they can pass on to their customers.

Among other things, the Homeowners Kit explains how customers can use online tools to move information to a new address, how to arrange for fridge and freezer pick-up, and how to participate in different energy-conservation initiatives.

"When we mentioned the idea to the Toronto Real Estate Board, they were very excited to participate. They are there to serve their clients, Toronto realtors, and the Homeowners Kit is great because it provides useful information that realtors can pass on to their own clients."

The Homeowners Kit is available at torontohydro.com in the "Are you moving?" section and is also available through the TREB website.

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Tanya Bruckmueller (Wilson), Toronto Hydro, media & public affairs

First of its kind fellowship helps Ontario nurses gain expertise in palliative care

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Toronto's North York General Hospital (NYGH) has launched a new fellowship program to train advanced nurse specialists in palliative care delivery.

Advanced nurse specialists, so-called because they hold a master's degree in nursing, have long played an integral leadership role in North York General's palliative care unit--the Freeman Centre for the Advancement of Palliative Care. Soon after it was established in 1999, the Freeman Centre brought-in a clinical nurse specialist--a type of advanced nurse specialist--to help guide the program and provide expert care to patients.

Palliative care, as defined by the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association , refers to care "aimed at relieving suffering and improving the quality of life for persons who are living with, or dying from, advanced illness or are bereaved." In Canada the terms 'palliative care' and 'hospice care' are generally used interchangeably.

"The physicians, as our medical director puts it, anchor the program," explains Virginia Clark-Weir, a clinical nurse specialist at the Freeman Centre. "Whereas the clinical nurse specialist occupies the role of consultant, teacher, mentor, and provider of expert care based on evidence and research."

But while clinical nurses specialists are integral to providing palliative care, there is a shortage of advanced practice nurses trained in the specialty.

"Palliative care is becoming more and more visible and is gaining a place as a specialty within the health care system," says Clark-Weir. "There is recognition of what this role can contribute, but not much in the way of training people for the role. So this program is really responding to a need to prepare advanced practice nurses in this specialty."

The Freeman Center will begin hosting its first fellow in July of this year (the hospital will only be taking on one fellow at a time). The nursing fellow will participate in a paid six-month training program that will combine mentorship and hands-on training.

The fellowship, the first of its kind in Ontario, is being funded by the NYGH foundation in partnership with donors Zoltan and Yetta Freeman who contributed $1 million to the project.

North York General's palliative care program provides patients with both hospital and in-home care.

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Virginia Clark-Weir, clinical nurse specialist, North York General

Valley Park Community playground one step closer to cricket field

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

The underused and poorly maintained Thorncliffe Park playground will soon be transformed into a vibrant community hub complete with a cricket field, running track, amphitheater, butterfly garden, and extensive green space.

The $1.1 million Valley Park Go Green Cricket Field Project was initiated by a group of community activists and staff at Valley Park Middle School over two years ago in an effort to give the children and youth living in one of Toronto's densest low income neighbourhoods somewhere to play and congregate. The majority of Valley Park students live in nearby high-rise apartments in the Thorncliffe and Flemingdon neighbourghoods, two Toronto communities lacking in useable green space.

The years of lobbying and fund-raising are finally paying off. Early last month, Go Green formally signed a land license with Infrastructure Ontario. With the land license official, construction on the project is scheduled to start on the site as early as April 2013.

The $1.1 million project will be funded by a coalition of donors including Ontario Trillium Foundation, Live Green Toronto (a project of the City of Toronto), RBC Foundation, and the International Development & Relief Foundation.

"For the Live Green grants we look at the environmental impact of a project as well as it's impact on the community and how the community will be engaged in the process," says Jeff Mcormick, senior environmental planner with the City of Toronto.

"And this project was a win-win on both counts."

The first monetary installment for the project, a $225,000 Capital Grant from Live Green Toronto, will be released by the end of the month and will be used towards the treatment of stormwater, a community garden on the site and other environmental components.

"This project has all these green elements that adhere to the Live Green mandate of positive environmental impact in terms of cleaning the air, reducing green house gas emissions, and improving water quality," says Mcormick.

"On the surface, when you see the name of the project--a cricket pitch--there might seem to be a disconnect there, but when you get into details of what the cricket pitch includes, and that it does include all these natural elements, that's why we're involved and that's why we're a huge supporter of this project."

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Valley Park Go Green Cricket Field Project; Jeff Mcormick, Senior Environmental Planner, City of Toronto

TO2015 launches IGNITE campaign to support grassroots initiatives

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

In the summer of 2015, Toronto will host the 17th Pan Am/Parapan Am Games. It may be two years away and will last less than two months, but it will leave a mark on the city long before, and long after, the athletes have packed and gone home.

The games' organizing committee (TO2015) is hoping that a big part of the games' legacy will be the way it engaged diverse groups of Torontonians. The event's tagline is, afterall, "the people's games."

Last week, as part of its overall strategy, T02015 officially launched the TO2015 IGNITE program, an initiative that invites grassroots organizations to become affiliated with the upcoming games.

"We were looking to an answer to the question of 'how do we get involved with these games,'" says Zenia Wadhwani, director of community outreach for TO2015. "We wanted a means for people to get involved, understanding that we had our own concerns about budget and resources and how do we do that. So we developed the idea of IGNITE, the idea being that organizations or individuals could create their own Pan Am program under our banner, in their own way, and what we would be able to provide was sort of a stamp of approval."

In order to get the IGNITE affiliation, projects must in some capacity be inspired by the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games. Once approved by the organizing committee, the projects will then join the TO2015 IGNITE program, receiving an official association with the Games, the use of the IGNITE logo, and local and national exposure.

IGTINE launched as a pilot program early last year, with 35 organizations participating in the first round.

"We reached out to about 50 plus organizations that we had touched base with in some way," says Wadhwani. "We were talking to them about the games. We were talking to them about opportunities for partnership and invited them to submit an application."

As a result of the pilot program, 35 projects in Toronto, St. Catharines, Brampton, Hamilton, Londesborough and Ajax are now operating under the IGNITE banner. Projects include a UofT Pan Am themed summer camp, a boxing challenge offered by Mentoring Junior Kids Organization (MJKO), and an Americas-themed multi-media performance at the Art Gallery of York University.

Based off the pilot's success, IGNITE officially launched in late January. The first round of applications is due March 1st.

"When we say the 'people's games,' what we really want to do is create real sense of ownership," says Wadhwani. "These are the games that are coming to my region and I have a stake in them. So what the program does is allow individuals to say, 'It's my idea, I'm going to manage it, I'm going to create it, I'm still going to be able to attach to the games and I'm going to do it in my own way."

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Zenia Wadhwani, Director of Community Outreach, TO2015

Google Canada donates $100,000 for tech resources in Regent Park

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Thanks to an $100,000 donation from Google Canada, Toronto high school students living in the Regent Park area will have better access to the technology that's often essential to succeeding in high school and post secondary education.

In a press conference yesterday, Pathways to Education Regent Park announced that Google Canada will provide funds to outfit a new technology hub and meeting space to be housed at Daniels Spectrum building located at 585 Dundas Street East.

The new space, named the Pathways to Education Regent Park Digital Bridge, will double as both technological and resource hub as well as meeting place for the program's student participants and educators.

Pathways to Education Canada was launched in 2001 with the goal of reducing high school dropout rates in low-income communities. The same year it launched, Pathways teamed up with the Regent Park Community Health Centre to bring Pathways programming and resources to the neighbourhood's high school students.

"In our previous space, there was little room for technology or a computer lab as much of Pathways' programming took place in local church basements and schools," stated Sheila Braidek, executive director of the Regent Park Community Health Centre, in a press release. "Now, more than ever, students striving to move from high school to post secondary require access to technology and the many advantages that come with being connected. This new space will provide students with the digital learning aids they will need to persevere."

In addition to providing a space where students can use the technology for independent learning and homework, the new space will also be available for group study and training. A new digital literacy curriculum has been developed by Pathways and will be launched in February 2013.

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Pathways to Education Canada

YIMBY festival brings together city's most active civic organizations

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

"Yes in My Back Yard!" that's the rallying cry of a growing Toronto movement hoping to create a more positive and productive dialogue between neighbourhood groups, and the policy makers and developers making decisions in their communities.

For the past six years, Toronto's Centre for City Ecology has been hosting the annual YIMBY! Festival, an event that invites civic organizations, neighbourhood groups, Toronto residents, and policy makers to engage with each other from a YIMBY framework.

By substituting the oft-used acronym NIMBY (not in my back yard) with YIMBY, the festival organizers hope to encourage more communication between different urban stakeholders, and to challange the use of the dismissive NIMBY label on groups who want a say in their communities.

Founded in 2006 by the prolific Toronto architect, artist and activist Christina Zeidler, the YIMBY! Festival was launched as a way of combatting what Zeidler saw as the perception that communication between neighbourhood groups and policy makers was inherently antagonistic.

"We work to make the YIMBY Festival a connection point between community groups who have similar goals, politicians who represent them, and local Torontonians who want to get involved," says Dania Ansari, a YIMBY! Festival organizer. "This city is full of people working on similar initiatives in neighbourhoods across Toronto, and YIMBY is a chance for them to get to know each other better, possibly form collaborations, and to be encouraged by each other's work."

This year's YIMBY! festival will be held on Saturday February 16th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Toronto Reference Library's Bram and Bluma Appel Salon. It's free and open to everyone.

"The programming is different every year, depending on who is participating," says Ansari. "The themes of the day and activities are new every time to keep things interesting and also to address current issues that communities, and the city in general, is facing at the time. [For this year's event] we have several activities planned for children, general performances, art displays and panel discussions."

Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities, the Toronto Historical Association and Toronto Park People are among the organizations already register for this year's festival. Last year more than 45 local organizations participated.

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Dania Ansari

Fourth annual Toronto homecoming event invites global leaders back to the city

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

For the fourth year-in-row, Toronto Homecoming is inviting talented Torontonians working abroad to come back to the city, meet with potential employers, and, if all goes well, decide to stick around.

The Toronto Homecoming project, an initiative of Toronto CivicAction's Emerging Leaders Network, is an annual three-day conference dedicated to showing Canadians who've moved abroad for career opportunities--the number one reason young professionals leave--that they can find the career they're looking for right back where they started.

"Toronto Homecoming is an initiative to connect talented individuals thinking of returning to Toronto with companies that require their unique skills," stated Andrew Graham, co-chair of Toronto Homecoming in a press release. "Our event is like speed dating between Canadians living abroad and companies looking for global talent. It is an exclusive opportunity for the business community to meet the future leaders of tomorrow, today."

The application process for this year's conference was launched early last week. And while successful applicants pay their own way, getting accepted to the conference is a competitive process and is based on applicants' professional and educational backgrounds.

Toronto Homecoming boasts an impressive success rate. According to organizers, almost half of the participants in past events have returned to work in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area.

The year's event will be held from May 9th to May 11th. During those three days, the expat professionals will congregate in Toronto to attend a series of roundtables, job fairs, networking events, and seminars.

The deadline for application is Feb. 28th.

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: CivcAction

Toronto Hydro unveils new energy storage unit

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Toronto's electrical infrastructure is aging and the demand for energy is ever-increasing.

And while the "smart gird" industry continues to offer new technological tools, innovators are often faced with a difficult question, 'How do you incorporate new technology into an old system without having to tear it down and start from scratch?'

A Toronto consortium led by renewable-energy company eCAMION, with Toronto Hydro and the University of Toronto, is collaborating on what could become a important strategy: energy storage boxes installed at the community level.

Toronto Hydro recently announced the completion of the consortium's first energy-storage project, a battery-powered energy storage unit located at a North York's Roding Arena and Community Centre.

This new community-level unit is the first of its kind in Toronto. It differs from Toronto Hydro's traditional energy storage units, which are only used as back-up for particular power stations or transmission centres.

The advantage of the community-level unit is that Toronto Hydro will be able to direct stored energy directly to the customer. That means that not only will the unit be able to feed power back into the the grid during peak times, it will also have the potential to provide power to connected homes or businesses in the event of an interruption in the grid.

The technical term for the use of neighbourhood storage units is a community energy storage (CES) system.

The Roding Community Centre unit is only the first of three that will be installed as part of CES system pilot program. A program funded by the consortium members and by Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

"An opportunity like this comes once every forty years," stated Ivano Labricciosa, vice president of asset management for Toronto Hydro in a press release. "Toronto Hydro's distribution grid is facing a number of challenges and community energy storage can address some of these challenges instead of developing one solution per problem."

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Toronto Hydro

Ontario Tire Stewardship announces winning redesign for YMCA concourse

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Yonge Street recently wrote that the Ontario Tire Stewardship (OTS) had decided to host their Student Design Challenge for a second year-in-row. This year's challenge, aimed at post-secondary students from across Ontario, was to design the interior of a new concourse at the Toronto Central YMCA.

Now, just a month-and-half later, the winning design has been announced.

At an event this past Saturday, a panel of judges awarded the prize to University of Toronto students David Garcia Gonzalez, Jessica Wagner, and Gregory Bunker. Not only will the students be presented with financial scholarships, they will get to see their winning design implemented at the YMCA concourse.

"The UofT team brought a mix of creativity and pragmatism to their design," says Andrew Horsman, executive director of OTS.

And they did it all, from the brainstorming to the final proposal, in just 24 hours.

The OTS challange used a 'design jam' strucutre, meaning that the eight participating teams worked side-by-side over an intensive two-day period to learn about the project and to come up with their ideas.

"I think overall the designs they came forward with, the fact they could come up with these designs in 24 hours was astounding," says Horsman. "They really were trying to, in a very short amount of time, come up with designs that had some 'wow' to them. They were dynamic and different and also took into account the needs of the YMCA. Overall all of the entries were excellent."

Students were asked to use of tire-derived products in their plans, and representatives from the product manufactures were on hand to answer any questions.

"The students were really trying to use the products in ways that were innovative and ways that were different and expand the use of the material by finding these new applications," says Horsman. "That is exactly the kind of the innovation that the project hopefully continues to bring. "

The winning design is scheduled to be built and ready for the public by the end of the summer.

"One of things with the designs is that as good as the students are, they have limited amount of time," says Horsman. "So now the winning design will go through a bit of a tweaking process to sort of make sure that it is in fact buildable. We have a professor from UofT that we work with [who] will work with the students on what those tweaks are."

Established in 2009, the Ontario Tire Stewardship is an Industry Funding Organization or IFO. IFOs, as establised by Ontario's 2002 Waste Diversion Act, are organizations comprised of industry representatives tasked with implementing rules to help their industry divert a particular product from ending up in landfills.

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Andrew Horsman, Executive Director, Ontario Tire Stewardship

Ontario Green Jobs Map shows the green economy is already here

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

"The green economy is huge. It's not something that's futuristic. It's not something that's coming down-the-pipe. It's here already."

And it's that fact, says Stewart Chisholm, program director of Evergreen CityWorks, that motivated Evergreen to release its latest report The Ontario Green Jobs Map. The report, which Evergreen CityWorks released in partnership with ECO Canada, examines the present, and future, of Ontario's green job market.

The report comes as a follow-up to ECO Canada's national report The Canada Green Jobs Map, released in October of 2012.

"When we heard about the national study being undertaken we saw an opportunity, through our partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, to commission a more specific Ontario component," explains Chisholm.

"We saw this as a great opportunity to dig deeper into the Ontario context because we didn't have the resources to commission a standalone study. The Ontario piece uses the same methodology as the national study, but goes into more depth then the national study in terms of looking at the specific Ontario context."

The Ontario report outlines both the largest clusters of so-called "green jobs" in the province, as well as identifying the particular areas of the green economy where Ontario has the most potential to grow.

By giving real-time information on Ontario's competencies in the green economy, the report allows Evergreen Cityworks to better tailor their programming to the needs of Ontario job-seekers and entrepreneurs.

"For people looking to find employment in the green economy, it provides some very preliminary ideas of what kinds of skills might be needed as they move into that area," says Chisholm. "It provides a foundation for our program… so, for example, we have a youth internship program and we will use the results of the report as we move forward with that so the skills people are learning in our internship program are aligned with the skills identified in the study."

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Stewart Chisholm

New Ryerson program to help business students become "ethical leaders"

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

What does it mean to lead responsibly? To lead ethically?

A new Ryerson University initiative hopes to help students, faculty, and the wider business community tackle these tough questions directly.

Thanks to a gift from Canadian business leader Jim Pattison, Ryerson University recently established The Jim Pattison Ethical Leadership Education and Research Program. The program, hosted by Ryerson's Ted Rogers Leadership Centre, will begin its ethical leadership programming as early at this fall.

"The thing to remember when you're talking leadership is that too often people think of leadership in terms of CEOs and company presidents," says Chris MacDonald, professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management and director of the new ethical leadership program.

"One of the foundational points of this project, and something we want to communicate especially to our business majors, is that leadership is an activity that goes on through most organizations, not only at the top. Whether or not you're a CEO, you're still very likely to be taking on leadership responsibilities at some level and you'll have to think about what it means to lead a team and make good ethical decisions."

The new initiative is not a new degree program, nor will it offer classes in the traditional sense. Instead, the new centre will supplement existing business and leadership training at the school by hosting workshops and lectures, developing curriculum for use in the classroom, and providing research grants for faculty studying ethical business practice.

The centre also hopes to connect with the wider business community by hosting ethical leadership executive seminars for business managers.

"We're going to be offering educational events of different kinds at three different levels," says MacDonald. "For undergraduate business majors, for MBA students, and then for business executives."

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Chris MacDonald

Toronto charity Adventure Place receives grant for more energy efficient appliances

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Toronto charity Adventure Place received a $2,500 award from Direct Energy this past Tuesday to be used towards the purchase of new energy efficient appliances.

Adventure Place was presented with the award after submitting a short video to Direct Energy's Reduce Your Use For Good contest website. The video showcased Adventure Place's 40 years of providing mental health support to young children and their families.

"We are thrilled to recognize Adventure Place for the great things they are doing for the children and families in their community, and award them with a Reduce Your Use For Good grant," stated Eddy Collier, president of Direct Energy Services, in a press release. "This grant will help Adventure Place make energy efficiency upgrades to their facility and use those savings for core programs and services."

The Reduce Your Use For Good program is a Direct Energy attempt to increase their social media presence. For ever 2,500 new 'likes' Direct Energy gets on Facebook they donate $2,500 to a charity (up to a total of $100,000) that has submitted a video to the contest website.

Located just North of Don Mills and Finch, and serving Toronto's entire North Quadrant, Adventure Place is known for developing individualized programs that help children improve in areas where they are experiencing developmental difficulties.

"We are absolutely thrilled that Direct Energy selected Adventure Place as a winner for this grant of $2,500. Our agency has been providing much needed mental health services to children and families for over 40 years and the contributions made by corporate partners like Direct Energy help us to reach our goals." says Cheryl Webb, Executive Director at Adventure Place. "The funds will be used to purchase energy efficient appliances for our children's kitchen."

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Direct Energy