Youth celebrate solstice.
Youth from the Greenest City light lanterns Monday night in celebration of the winter solstice.
Staff Photo/ERIN HATFIELD
On the eve of the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, the plants in Parkdale's community gardens my be asleep, but that doesn't mean Greenest City is taking a break.
On Monday, the day before the official beginning of winter, Greenest City held a Growing the Future Open House and Winter Solstice candle lighting in the Youth Garden on Dunn Avenue. A bevy of energized young people from the Parkdale-High Park area shared a meal, participated in activities such as making greeting cards and then went out to the Youth Garden to light lanterns and learn about the winter solstice.
Greenest City is the not-for profit that operates the HOPE community garden on Cowan Avenue and the youth garden on Dunn Avenue in Parkdale. It grows local organic food but as the organization evolves, a focus on developing youth leaders and educating young people about food has emerged.
"It isn't a shift in focus, it is an add on," said Carolyn Scotchmer, executive director of Greenest City. "We have had Youth Green Squad and we have had children's programming for a number of years."
She went on to explain that in 2010, Greenest City grew its youth programming and it is now offered year round to children three to 20.
On top of the Youth Green Squad, which provides jobs as environmental leaders to high school students over the summer, Scotchmer said there was added youth programming this year including: the after-school program, which ran from September through June; a youth mentor program for 13 to 15 year olds where they learn about, grow and cook healthy food; and a youth community kitchen.
The programming was created when Greenest City recognized a need.
"There was a gap in a programming between the kids (who) weren't children, but weren't old enough to be in the Youth Green Squad," Scotchmer said. "So we started looking at ways to fill it."
They started doing a youth drop-in during the fall, and the youth started asking what Greenest City had planned for them during the winter.
"If they wanted to do something in the winter, then we wanted to do something with them in the winter," Scotchmer said.
So they asked the youth what kind of programming they wanted to see and the youth said they wanted to learn to cook and learn about healthy and different foods, which resulted in the after-school program where, each week, young people will cook a health meal or snack to share.
Scotchmer said there seems to be a real demand for this type of programming and Greenest City will continue to try to fill it with interesting and educational activities in 2011.