Humber College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

The GARDENS Pod Project is a community project that addresses food insecurity in South Etobicoke (Ward 3) using a two-pronged approach:

- Produce is grown in portable, raised garden beds (referred to as pods) and donated back to the community to the Daily Bread Food Bank and LAMP CHC Good Food Market.

- Free educational workshops that address food security, gardening and nutrition. The project runs throughout the summer and consists of a primary partnership between Humber College and LAMP Community Health Centre, with secondary partnerships with community organization (pod site providers), community members and volunteers.

The GARDENS Community Pod project is as an innovative idea to address food security and environmental concerns. This initiative promotes the growth and consumption of local food. Garden pods will increase community residents’ contact with greenery, encourage physical activity amongst the gardeners, learn about issues around food insecurity, food justice, indigenous access to food, and boost populations of pollinators in the neighborhood. By donating a portion of the harvest to the community, the pods will also impact food security for low-income earners, lone parent families, persons living on fixed incomes, and people with disabilities living in the area. It will also increase access to educational resources and programming around gardening, cooking and affordable and healthy meal options.

Humber College students in the Faculty of Social and Community Services and the Longo Faculty of Business Students were responsible for maintaining and harvesting pod sites located at nine community partner locations, developing social media content and educational programming. They provided material support to the partnership.

In the summer of 2020, Faculty of Applied and Sciences Technology (FAST), Continuing Education department launched a new program called Home Efficiency Retrofit Orientation (HERO). HERO is developed in partnership with Enbridge Gas and delivered in collaboration with different Ontario municipalities such as City of Toronto and City of Vaughan.

The Home Efficiency Retrofit Orientation (HERO) program helps homeowners incorporate best practice energy-efficiency upgrades in home renovations that improve comfort, resilience, peace of mind, GHG reductions, and lower energy costs. The session will provide insights on eligible rebate programs and topics covered include: Heating/Cooling systems, Insulation, Windows, Hot Water Heating & reducing Air Leakage. It is geared toward single-family homeowners (i.e. detached, semi-detached, townhome house types).

This is a two-hour session delivered virtually, and free of charge to the homeowners. The neighborhoods that were identified were communities with older homes who could benefit from the subsidies available as incentives to retrofit their homes. The webinar series was provided to volunteers that would approach the home owners to educate them on the subsidies available, savings once the retrofits were done (highlighting which retrofits had the biggest impact) and the positive impact on environment. The program’s audience varies, the program is a no-cost program open to anyone, some of our audience could be from underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations.

Humber’s FAST and the Continuing Education Department materially supports the program through program facilitation, communications, and marketing campaigns and financial support through Enbridge Gas.

Urban Harvest Toronto and Humber tackles food insecurity of the residents in Rexdale, Toronto through virtual culinary workshops. Humber's Community Outreach and Workforce Development (COWD), Faculty of Business, Faculty of Media & Creative Arts departments and Urban Harvest Toronto have collaborated to help Rexdale community residents prolong their food and reduce food waste. Urban Harvest Toronto is a food access and waste diversion program that works with urban gardeners with a surplus of produce and connects them to local food banks to support households facing food insecurity. COVID-19 prevented the program from running its usual in-person food preservation workshops, which helped to develop food preparation skills and provided participants with the opportunity for community gatherings. With the help of Humber, the workshops became virtual since Oct 26 2020, where local residents have been watching and cooking along with live food preservation workshops that have run weekly by Humber faculty and students, using food provided by Urban Harvest. https://humber.ca/today/news/urban-harvest-toronto-and-humber-tackle-food-insecurity-rexdale

Humber’s Arboretum have been partnered with West Humber Collegiate since the spring of 2019 through the Toronto District School Boards Community Connected Experiential Learning grant. As the community partner in this grant we led educational workshops for students from WHCI focused on sustainable horticulture, habitat restoration, and environmental stewardship. Our project was and still is focused on converting an urban farm that lost funding into a pollinator friendly outdoor learning space for students attending WHCI to use during school and a place for the surrounding community to use after hours and on weekends. Students within our Learning by Leading program and who worked as Summer Camp Counsellors in our Nature Camp had the opportunity to work onsite during summer months to help with the ongoing environmental stewardship maintenance of the space when students were off for the summer. As part of this program, students from WHCI have learned about invasive species as well as native plant species and their importance to pollinators. Students took part in removing garlic mustard from the site and also planted an area with about 40 different species of native flowering shrubs to support the birds and pollinators. Students that have been taking part in this program have had the opportunity to come to the Humber Arboretum to learn about and participate in certain activities related to using outdoor learning spaces to enhance the student learning and provide more experiential focused activities connected to learning about and protecting the natural environment onsite at WHCI.