Growing Impact with Humber’s Centre for Social Innovation

Tags: December 2023, Vol. 4, Issue 1

During the spring and summer of 2023, Humber’s Centre for Social Innovation proudly supported the eighth growing season for the GARDENS Project – a community initiative in partnership with LAMP Community Health Centre.

The GARDENS Project fosters a community for learning about urban gardening, while helping to combat food insecurity. The project establishes a community garden, but with a twist: scattered throughout South Etobicoke, 15 schools, churches, and local businesses have small, raised garden planters (“pods”) on their property that are maintained by community volunteers. The vegetables and herbs grown are then donated to local food programs, including the Daily Bread Food Bank, and New Toronto Street Food Bank.

As the cost of living—including food prices—continues to climb, the challenges to staying physically and mentally healthy also rise, particularly within equity-deserving populations. The GARDENS Project aims to make a variety of fresh produce more readily available to community members currently in need of local food programs. The GARDENS project also aims to support its community volunteers—many of whom are local seniors, students, professionals, and families—by creating safe spaces to engage with nature, foster mental health, learn about growing and eating healthy produce, explore sustainability practices, engage in new skills and gardening as a hobby, and even create new connections with neighbours.

This year, the GARDENS engaged over 50 community volunteers to care for the garden pods and support the project, including several Humber students and staff. The Centre for Social Innovation also helped the GARDENS grow its network of community partners by onboarding new pod site hosts, identifying new food programs as donation recipients, and strengthening the sponsorship support from CF Sherway Gardens. Together, this network produced 615 lbs of fresh produce for the community.

As the GARDENS Project continues to grow, it is looking for new members to join its primary organizational body, the GARDENS Advisory Committee (GAC), to help lead the 2024 growing season.

In mid-August, the GARDENS Project also began working with Humber’s new Director for the Centre for Social Innovation, Daniel Bear. As Daniel and the Centre for Social Innovation continue to support the wrapping up of a successful growing season, we also continue to expand the Centre’s scope into a variety of additional new and exciting projects and issue areas.