by Aayan Moledina | 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.
by Aayan Moledina | 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.
by Aayan Moledina | 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
by Sabina Ali | Mar 24, 2024 | Blog
At the heart of the Thorncliffe Park community, the Thorncliffe Park Community Market has been an energetic and vibrant hub for the past 15 years. Every Friday from May to October, hundreds of our neighbours gather in R.V. Burgess Park from 3 p.m. until sunset, fostering connections and strengthening our community fabric.
The Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee, a grassroots not-for-profit organization, is proud to orchestrate this unique event. We are committed to empowering newcomer women, promoting their integration through education, entrepreneurship, food security, and civic participation. Our market is a reflection of these commitments and the rich diversity that defines our wonderful community.
From its inception, the Thorncliffe Park Community Market has aimed to provide entrepreneurial opportunities to newcomer women. This vision aligns with our mission of enhancing self-esteem, improving conversational skills, and fostering learning among peers. It also provides a platform for supplemental income, supporting families and stimulating our local economy.
Our beloved Park Café has emerged as a natural extension of this model. We firmly believe in addressing community challenges such as unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, and food insecurity through grassroots solutions. The café is a testament to this belief, serving up delicious Bolani and Tandoor bread, and acting as a melting pot of cultures and cuisines.
The Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee is driven by the belief that our community’s cultural mosaic is its greatest strength. Our ultimate aim is to improve the quality of life for every community member, regardless of economic status, ethnicity, ability, or gender. We strive to foster a sense of inclusion and diversity, which we believe is key to a thriving community.
One of our significant achievements has been the transformation of R.V. Burgess Park. Once neglected, this park is now a vibrant community meeting place, thanks to our advocacy and the City of Toronto’s commitment. The park now boasts playground equipment, a renovated splash pad and water fountain, new swings, benches, bins, light poles, picnic tables, a community garden, electricity, and a first-of-its-kind permanent outdoor tandoor bake oven.
Our integrated model of community and economic development has garnered recognition both locally and internationally. In 2013, R.V. Burgess Park was named a “Frontline Park” by the Washington, D.C.-based City Parks Alliance. This honour, the first given to a park outside the U.S., acknowledges our creative revitalization efforts and our commitment to building safer communities.
Every vendor, every visitor, and every conversation at our market contributes to this vision. We invite you to join us in celebrating our community’s diversity and strength, one market day at a time.
by Ronnie Chatterjee | Jan 22, 2024 | Blog
A Community Garden is a city-approved area run by the neighbouring community as a group. Gardening has slowly become a popular recreational activity in Toronto, with more people having a growing understanding of its importance due to its environmental and social benefits. Furthermore, the educational opportunity visiting a garden provides is valuable especially to younger children, who can benefit from an engaging, hands-on learning environment.
The Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee (TPWC), helped establish the Thorncliffe Family Garden located at R.V Burgess Park in the year 2011. The purpose of the garden was to provide an opportunity to people in the Thorncliffe Park community, which consists mostly of newcomers and immigrants, to grow plants in their local community. Throughout the following years, TPWC has been able to grow and expand the garden allowing for greater involvement from the community.
Every year since 2011, the Thorncliffe Family Garden has hosted educational programs for elementary and kindergarten classes as part of their learning, as well as a drop-in program every Tuesday during the summer vacation which is led by the Garden Coordinators. Tours during the programs cover what plants are being grown and their significance. TPWC utilizes some of the plots to grow organic fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, raspberries, peppers, corn and much more, all of which is used in the Park Cafe in food preparation. Some of the produce is also shared with the participants of the programs. Aside from food plants, a portion of the Family Garden is dedicated to the Thorncliffe Pollinator Garden, wherein native plants to Ontario, such as Blazing Stars, Blacked-Eyed Susans, Coneflowers and much more are grown. The purpose of the Pollinator Garden is to provide a suitable habitat for pollinators, helping to support the local ecosystem and food web through reproduction of important plants.
In addition to the tours, each session delves into environmental issues as well as establishes the importance of nature to humanity through discussions and interactive activities.
This past summer, topics and activities included:
- Biodiversity – drawing relationships between animals and plants in the garden
- Invasive Species – how they reproduce and why removal is important, finger painting
- Pollution – different kinds of pollution, what we can do about it and clean-up of garden
- Nutrient Cycles – how plants are important to various nutrient cycles (carbon, nitrogen) and what nutrients they need to grow, basic care for gardening
These sessions enable children to become more conscientious of their surroundings and understand nature better which enriches a new generation of ecologically-aware individuals.
Ultimately, a garden contributes to a community in various ways. An outdoor classroom, a home to pollinators and a place for growing food sustainably is an invaluable resource, one that continues to bring the Thorncliffe Community members together.
by Ronnie Chatterjee | Jul 21, 2022 | Blog
Since 2008, the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee has strived to revitalize our community public green space – R.V. Burgess Park. With the efforts of the community, we’ve lobbied the City of Toronto to help improve our park. We’ve been extremely lucky to see a multitude of improvements to R.V. Burgess Park, including benches, a water fountain, and picnic tables; newly planted trees, flowers, and sod, paved paths, power outlets, and an additional storage shed; as well as updated playground equipment and a splash pad.
Thanks to the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee’s community revitalization projects, R.V. Burgess Park was the first Canadian park to be named a frontline park by City Parks Alliance – a recognition awarded to “standout examples of urban park excellence, innovation and stewardship.”
City Parks Alliance is “the only independent, nationwide membership organization solely dedicated to urban parks” – by bringing together community leaders, governments, funders, and park authorities, this collective works to “engage, educate and nurture a broad-based constituency to support the creation, revitalization and sustainability of parks and green spaces that contribute to dynamic cities.”
This past July, the folks from City Parks Alliance paid a visit to Toronto on a sunny Saturday morning, during which the members of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee led an in-depth tour of our community greenspace – R.V. Burgess Park – exploring its past and present, demonstrating naan baking with our famous tandoor oven, and sharing important, exciting ideas, as well as delicious food!
After this successful action-packed visit to our community, the folks at City Parks Alliance have extended an invitation to Sabina Ali – the chair of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee to speak as a part of the plenary session at their upcoming international urban parks conference in Minneapolis next summer. The “Greater & Greener 2017” conference seeks to explore the “issues, challenges, and opportunities facing today’s urban parks.” As a featured speaker on the plenary panel, Sabina will be presenting the TPWC’s work in R.V. Burgess Park, discussing the positive impact that parks and green spaces can have on our urban communities.
