Community Market Summer 2025

Community Market Summer 2025

by | Sep 17, 2025 | Blog

Our Fridays were very eventful this summer here at the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee, with the Community Market buzzing with people, food and activities. 

With an average of 10-15 vendors coming every Friday, the market was always a lively hub for the community. Women of the community were able to sell items like jewelry, clothes, artisan food, supplies/accessories, and much more, providing entrepreneurial opportunities and support to them. Along with the vendors, we always had our bread-baking demo in the tandoor oven, where we made both fresh naan and bolani, a crowd favourite that kept everyone coming back week after week. Simultaneously, we had the Arts in the Park, specifically our Clean Park Campaign, every week for children ages 5-12 to join in art workshops and park clean-ups. As always, during the markets and the other weekdays, our Park Café was open to everyone who wanted a snack, drink or fresh food. We served gourmet foods like chicken biryani, samosas, pakora, kachori and much more, cold treats like freezies and popsicles and a variety of drinks and other snacks.

We had two major festivals this summer, the first being Canada Day, our 9th consecutive year celebrating as a committee. We had a beautiful traditional Afghan dance, face painting for children, and henna. For our Arts in the Park activities, we invited everyone to create artwork about Canada and their home country, celebrating how far we have come. It was a beautiful celebration of our diverse and pluralistic country and how grateful we are to call it home, all with different backgrounds and ethnicities.

In mid-August, we had our 4th annual Culture Fest at the Community Market. We had a lot of entertainment from the Shadowland Theatre parade to a fun hula hoop performance for everyone to enjoy. There were also many activities for children, like the Shadowland Theatre art workshops and hands-on science activities through the Science Centre. We also had Allan Colley come and share his knowledge and skills about traditional indigenous bread baking (Bannock) in our tandoor oven. As an extra, we set up a pop-up booth with fresh produce like cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, spring onions and more. With so much diversity in our community, our Culture Fest showcased the traditions and talents that make our community unique.

Arts in the Park and Clean Park Campaign 2025

Arts in the Park and Clean Park Campaign 2025

by | Aug 28, 2025 | Blog

The Arts in the Park, paired with our Clean Park Campaign, an initiative we have been running for many years to keep our park clean, continued this year in full swing. We ran it every Friday during the community market to engage the children in keeping the park clean and green through arts, creativity, and action.
For the first part of the program, we held an arts workshop at one of the booths for the children to participate in. Every week, there was a theme for what the children would make, such as clean park signs, how they do their part in keeping the park clean, what a dream clean park looks like to them, their park superhero and more. The children loved making their designs and were very creative in their artwork. During this, we would talk to the children about being stewards of the park and doing their little part in keeping it clean and green. We would explain the importance of respecting nature and the park property, and the effects of a dirty park on humans and wildlife.
For the remaining time, we actively engaged the children in our campaign by getting them to help in park clean-ups. We gave them gloves, and they went around picking up garbage off the ground. Usually, they enjoyed having a competition, and so we split them into two teams, and the group that picked up the most garbage won. The children would cover the whole park, from the grass to in front of the Cafe and under tables and benches. The winning team would receive a small prize, like a freezie or popsicle from the Cafe, as an incentive for them to continue participating every week. This experience taught the children about community action and that just a few helping hands can make a big difference
On the Friday before National Indigenous Day on June 21st, we hosted a special Arts in the Park activity for children to learn more about Indigenous culture, language, and food. Through actively engaging them in a discussion, they learned fun and meaningful facts about Indigenous peoples’ traditions with a focus on the significance of strawberries. The children learned what the strawberries represented, why they’re sacred, and the three main Indigenous branches: Inuit, Métis and First Nations. As a reward, they all received a fresh strawberry for participating.
Garden Drop-in Program Summer 2025

Garden Drop-in Program Summer 2025

by | Aug 25, 2025 | Blog

 

 

As the last days of summer approach and the children’s garden drop-in program comes to a close in the coming week, here is a recap of what the children did and learned in the garden this year.

 

 

 

One of the “fan favourite” activities was the weeding of the plants. The children learned that weeds are unwanted plants that grow where they’re not supposed to, and need to be removed for aesthetics and not to interfere with the growth of harvest plants, flowers, etc. We turned this into a friendly competition between the children, splitting them into two groups and letting them remove as many weeds as they could in a set time, seeing which group had more in their bin at the end. This was a fun and hands-on way for the children to get involved in maintaining and keeping our garden beautiful.
We also organized “themed” scavenger hunts for the children to participate in, as a way for them to explore and become more familiar with the garden. One of them was plant-themed, and included items like “a plant with a strong smell”, such as mint or lemon bombs or “a flower with bright petals” like a black-eyed susan, etc. We also had a bug theme, where the children had to find and name pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, beetles, and other bugs like potato bugs and grasshoppers. The garden scavenger hunt helped kids discover and identify different plants and bugs while building teamwork and sparking their curiosity.
Watering the plants was always a hit with the kids. In most drop-in sessions, we allocated some time for them to use the watering cans and help water the beds of plants and flowers at the front and the indigenous plants at the back of the garden. We taught the children where to water the plants, how much to water and the process of photosynthesis that plants perform with the help of water to help them make their own “food”.
The children absolutely loved getting to try the new harvest that we had in our garden. Our giant raspberry bush had delicious raspberries from the beginning of July up to the first few weeks in August. Every week, we gave the children a few raspberries as a little treat when they were leaving or as a prize for the competitions and activities. They also tried the fresh cucumbers, mint and basil that we grew in the plots and learned about the importance of washing produce, pesticides, and growing your own food.
In our little circle at the front of the garden, we had many meaningful and educational discussions with the children about a variety of topics. We talked about the importance of growing your own fruits and vegetables, what pollination and pollinators are, the biodiversity and ecosystems in the garden and much more. The kids were able to participate and share their thoughts and ideas in an open and welcoming environment.
Some of our curator and artist’s friends from Toronto and China visited our garden this summer to learn about social engagement, cultural foods that we grow in our garden and our children’s programming