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Niagara College

Greenbelt Youth Leaders

Grants Made:

$25,000 - June 1, 2007

Of the many successes from the Greenbelt Youth Leaders program, an annual Green Day was established at Niagara College, building awareness of environmental issues and recruiting members for the next year’s Environmental Corps.

The Greenbelt Youth Leaders program has been introduced by the Niagara Environmental Corps, which was created in September 2006 to increase environmental awareness at Niagara College and to empower students to solve environmental problems and build healthy communities.

Niagara College, in collaboration with Durham’s Fleming College, has developed a sustainable model of student-led environmental action. The Greenbelt Youth Leaders learn to increase public environmental awareness, assist companies and non-profit community organizations to develop and test environmental solutions to problems, and gives the students experience in applied research activities.

The Greenbelt Foundation is

  • Hosting the successful Tour de Greenbelt to promote Ontario’s Greenbelt as a tourism destination

  • Increasing amount of Greenbelt food in food share program 140%

  • Engaged Hamilton schools to switch to Greenbelt food for their students

  • Supporting the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance to foster strong Greenbelt Plan implementation at the municipal level

  • Building a local food economy from developing new markets to enhancing distribution channels

  • Successfully merging social welfare initiatives with environmental concerns

  • Partnering with Harbourfront Centre to tell the story of Ontario’s Greenbelt to 12 million people via a year-long, outdoor photography exhibit

  • Supporting changing the City of Toronto policy to adopt a local food purchasing bylaw for city facilities

  • Engaging with over 170 million Ontarians directly through our marketing, events and communications activities

  • Securing local food procurement commitments for Peel schools, City of Toronto, City of Markham and others

  • Bridging farming and hiking interests to acknowledge environmental progress by farmers

  • Funding the Holland Marsh Growers’ transition from an export, commodity focus to one that serves the local market with value- added products

  • Creating a network of Farmer’s Markets to help improve our local food economy

  • Supporting food policy council in Durham to create food charter

  • Participating strategically in growing the Greenbelt by working with Toronto, Peel, Halton, and Guelph

  • Reaching over 75 million by placing 220 permanent highway and regional road signs to ensure Ontarians and visitors know about this valuable protected area

  • Securing local food procurement commitments for Peel, U of T. City of Toronto Facilities and Markham

  • Funding policy changes to encourage more local food to be sold in Durham

  • Identifying barriers to opening markets for Greenbelt farmers and proposing solutions

  • Supporting tourism initiatives including in the Niagara and Caledon areas

  • Supporting the development of multi-cultural crops and training new Canadian Farmers

  • Supporting development of action plans for a variety of agricultural areas and commodities

  • Supporting the Credit Valley Conservation Authority to protect and restore wetlands

  • Supporting the creation of new multi-cultural crops and development of ethnic local food guides in Toronto and York Region

  • Funding research and analysis on greenbelts around the globe which concluded that Ontario’s Greenbelt is the most robust in the world, with a strong legal and policy framework

  • Convincing Peel school boards to buy Greenbelt food for students

  • Contributing to greater sales of Greenbelt wines at the LCBO

  • Creating Greenbeltfresh.ca, the leading electronic marketplace to source local, Greenbelt foods from over 600 producers

  • Supporting interested Greenbelt Farmers to Go Organic

  • Developing a successful culinary tourism platform for Niagara

  • Contributing $2.65 million to Greenbelt farmers to improve their operations (leveraging millions of dollars from federal sources), and to employ the opportunities of the Green Energy Act

  • Enhancing Farmers’ Markets, increasing sales for farmers in the Greenbelt and beyond

  • Funding visionary planning processes such as the new Cootes to Escarpment Park Management Plan, and a massive reforestation plan in Rouge Park

  • Hosted the first ever Global Greenbelts Conference in Toronto in March 2011 with speakers and delegates from over nine countries

  • Bringing thousands of Ontarians out into the Greenbelt each year through grantee activities and the Annual Tour de Greenbelt cycling event

  • Providing grants and support to significantly increase sales at farmers’ markets

  • Assisting in designing new policies to protect Lake Simcoe through timely research

  • Supporting the creation of an award-winning Greenbelt granola bar

 
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