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AHA MEDIA is proud to present ” It takes a community to raise a garden” by the Green Inner-city Cluster of Building Opportunities with Business (BOB) in Vancouver Downtown Eastside
On October 31st at 10:00 AM, volunteers are gathering at 700 East Hastings and Hawks Avenue in Strathcona to create the raised bed garden boxes necessary to convert five empty asphalt covered lots into an urban garden that will provide food, employment, and training opportunities for inner-city residents.
If you are interested in contributing to the greening of Vancouver’s inner-city we need volunteers and tools and materials, contact Seann Dory of United We Can for the latest list of what we need. Part of this project involves a mural which will include permanent recognition of the groups that made SOLEfood a reality.
This garden raising represents the culmination of months of work by a dedicated subset of the Green Inner-city Cluster. The property belongs to the owner of the Astoria Hotel who is letting us convert it to a garden in exchange for paying the taxes for the next couple years. We need to begin the conversion this month in order to be eligible for lower taxes.
Artist RenderingSave Our Living Environment is a sister organization to United We Can which was selected to be the lead organization for our first grant application. From there we got the name SOLEfood for our first urban agriculture project. Today’s coverage in the Metro and on Projects In Place’s blog neglected to mention the financial and organizational support of a number of key partners:
- Building Opportunities with Business
- Kristina Welch and the Centre for Sustainability and Social Innovation
- Louise of the Recycling Alternative
- Toby of Eclipse Awards and SBIA
- Potluck Cafe
- VEEES
- Green Inner-city Cluster members
- Participants and organizers of last week’s Ideas Jam
Come out and help us make Vancouver the Greenest City in the World, starting with Hawks and Hastings.
With thanks to Andrew “Muskie” McKay
Industry Initiatives Coordinator
Building Opportunities with Business (BOB)
http://greeningtheinnercity.ca/2009/10/26/it-takes-a-community-to-raise-a-garden/
AHA MEDIA attended BOB’s Green Inner-City event at Japanese Language School on June 10, 2009
Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA attended the following event by BOB 🙂 http://www.bobics.org
Below is text from BOB’s new blog at http://greeningtheinnercity.ca/
Join the Greening the Inner-city team for the kickoff event for BOB’s Green Inner-city Cluster. Learn from local green business leaders such as Toby Barazzuol of Eclipse Awards
and Louise Schwarz of the Recycling Alternative on how being green can be a competitive advantage for your organization.
Topics covered will include:
- Marketing Sustainability
- Greening Your Organization
- Green Buildings and Green Roofs
- Recycling and Waste Reduction
- Collaborating to increase efficiency
- Urban Agriculture
There will be presentations but also peer learning opportunities where attendees can share what has worked most successfully at their own organization. We are pleased to have Councilor Andrea Reimer giving the opening address. She is a leader in BC’s environmental movement and a member of the Mayor’s Greenest City Action Team.
Schedule:
| Time | Craft Room 3rd Floor w/ Projector | Tatami Room 5th Floor |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00 -10:15 | Welcome Address – Andrea Reimer – roof top patio weather permitting | |
| 10:15-10:30 | TBA | |
| 10:30 – 11:30 | How can being sustainable give you a competitive advantage? How to market your sustainability practices for maximum benefit? – Marketing Green with Toby Barazzuol, Saul Good, and Andrew “Muskie” McKay | What we are doing now that is green in our organization? – Sharing and learning about greening an organization with Kristina Welch and Maureen Cureton |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | <!– What current policies are in place in Vancouver to promote the green economy? What changes is the Greenest City Action Team considering to make Vancouver the Greenest City in the World? – Green Policy with Kristina Welch and Kira Gerwing –> TBD | How can you reduce and recycle inputs to your products and services? How can we take control of the complete full circle product lifecycle? – Wasted – The Shift from Recycling to Zero Waste with Louise Schwarz and Seann Dory |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Lunch | |
| 12:30 – 1:00 | How can you grow your own food? How can the inner-city increase its food security and create green jobs? – Urban Agriculture with Kristina Welch and Chris Hild | What is a green building? Where can I see green architechtural design locally? How can green buildings benefit my organization and the inner-city community? – Green Buildings, Green Roofs, and Energy Efficiency with Toby Barazzuol, Morgan McDonald, and Doug Horn |
| 1:00 – 1:30 | How can you play a part in creating green jobs in our community and greening the inner-city? – Brainstorming Sessions led by Shirley Chan, Andrew “Muskie” McKay and TBA | |
| 1:30 – 2:00 | Closing Address – Toby Barazzuol and TBD | |
Toby, the cluster, and Strathcona BIA’s efforts were recently profiled in the Vancouver Courier.
To see 37 photos, please see our Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahamedia/sets/72157619651861120/
AHA MEDIA is pleased to present BOB’s local Green Inner-City Cluster Kickoff Event
Green Inner-city Cluster Kickoff Event
Join Building Opportunities with Business and local green business leaders such as Toby Barazzuol of Eclipse Awards and Louise Schwartz of the Recycling Alternative to learn how being green can be a competitive advantage for your business. Topics covered will include:
- Marketing Sustainability
- Greening Your Business
- Green Buildings and Green Roofs
- Recycling and Waste Reduction
- Collaborating to increase efficiency
- Urban Agriculture
There will be presentations but also peer learning opportunities where attendees can share what has worked most successfully at their own business.
Time: June 10th 10:00-2:00
Location: Japanese Language School, 487 Alexander Street
Cost: Free (includes lunch, coffee, etc.)
RSVP: andrew.mckay@bobics.org
See what efforts are already underway to green Vancouver’s inner-city at the blog we started.
** NEW UPDATE **
We are pleased to have Councilor Andrea Reimer giving the opening address. She is a leader in BC’s environmental movement and a member of the Mayor’s Greenest City Action Team.
AHA MEDIA attended the Plan-It event at Aisle 45 by BOB ( Building Opportunities with Business )
AHA MEDIA attended the event where it was a presentation by UBC students on :
“How can BOB work with the community to revitalize the Hastings corridor between Main and Cambie?”
After an introduction to the evening’s presentations by CEO Shirley Chan of BOB http://www.bobics.org , we heard:
Topics to be presented on:
1) Social Enterprise & Informal Economies
2) Celebrating Community
3) Lighting the Corridor
4) Save on Meats, an institution
5) Using Branding for Revitalization
The highlight of the evening was when Hendrik Beune, Director of AHA MEDIA won free entry into a golf tournament sponsored by
EMBERS on Thursday, June 25th
for their “Against All Odds”
Golf Tournament Fundraiser
http://embersvancouver.com/golf_tournament_27.html
Pedicabs Training in Chinatown ( sponsored by BOB – Building Opportunities with Business )
Sunny Days and sunny smiles! 🙂
Pedicabs and their new tour guides from our local area including the Vancouver Downtown Eastside training and learning many things including:maintenance, customer service, time and small business management and skills and history of both Chinatown and Gastown – our tourists and local citizens are in for a treat! 🙂
In the photo below, Garvin Snider dressed in red is training to be one of the newest Pedicab operators 🙂
The Pedicab project is outlined below and highlights some of the work that BOB is currently doing in our neighborhood 🙂
Pedicabs
A pedicab is a bicycle-rickshaw ridden by a tour guide for hire and usually seats one or two passengers. The pedicab project is led by the Chinatown Business Improvement Association (BIA), with BOB providing a grant to kick-start development of the project.
By providing visitors with an environmentally friendly, fun and novel way of seeing the sights, the BIA expects to boost tourism and employment in the inner-city. Best of all, passengers will find the pedicab experience from the waterfront through Gastown and Chinatown an adventure with knowledgeable guides willing and able to provide a unique and multi-faceted experience.
In the photo below, Hendrik Beune, Director of AHA MEDIA, smiles and waves as he takes a test ride as a new Pedicab tour guide for our two historical neighborhoods – Gastown and Chinatown 🙂
BOB’s BusinessLink program will assist in the recruitment and training of pedicab guides in the inner-city. This project is just another example of how BOB is helping bring positive change to the inner-city.
For more information about this project, please contact Andrew McKay at (778) 328-7672 or email andrew.mckay@bobics.org.
Our new tour guides even get history lessons to help them tell their tales to their adventure-loving passengers!
After all the training and lessons Pedicab guides will be fit and ready to welcome anyone to our area! 🙂
Our summer in our neighborhoods of Gastown and Chinatown are going to get alot more exciting and more friendly with our new PediCab tourguides! 🙂
More PediCab training photos on our Flick :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahamedia/sets/72157616846478525/
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