Youth in Action: Bike Club

After a very interesting bike-safety workshop, we took our bike club leaders out on a beautiful bike ride through the city. Below is a picture on the UP rail path, a nice little patch of nature in the heart of Toronto. 

This fun bike ride means we now have bikes at the Youth Centre, so there will be amny bike events in the coming months. Thank you so much to our volunteers, Teeva and Maria who will be the youth leaders for this project. Also, thank you to Chantelle from the Bike to School TO project for all her support on getting the club up and running.

May with Global Roots

Global Roots Program is well underway as we begin planting in our newly renovated gardens! It is a very exciting time as we prepare to collect our first harvest and fill the gardens with spring time plants like tomato, kale, celery and parsley. 

On our first day of programming, the youth planted sunflower seeds, by the next week the sunflower seeds had sprouted and the youth prepared the beautiful snack below for the seniors.

Looking forward to more gardening and filling this amazing space with some fresh, organic, edible plants! 

Tree For Me: Tree Giveaway Event

On May 27, 2018, Youth in Action and SEAP Programs hosted the Tree for Me event at CultureLink Children & Youth Centre. Tree for Me is a community-powered backyard tree planting program where Toronto residents and non-profit organizations were able to receive free native trees in order to improve the tree canopy in Toronto for future generations. This event was in support of the Every Tree Counts campaign in partnership with Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation.  This connection was made possible by the Bike Host program.

There were 7 volunteers from SEAP and Youth in Action who worked hard to make this event possible with community outreach and facilitating workshops. On the day of the event there were 75 trees given away and Councillor Sarah Doucette was able to come visit and support the youth in our community.  

Thank you to Councillor Doucette for coming out and showing support for our environmental event, and to our student placement Denise for all her hard work.

The biggest thank you to our amazing youth volunteers (especially Yahya, Zak, Muad, Amaar, Charlie, Layal and Mahnoor) for their help outreaching and facilitating and for their enthusiasm in building a brighter future!

Tree for Me: Volunteer Training Event

CultureLink Youth (Youth in Action and SEAP Programs) have recruited volunteers to promote and facilitate a tree giveaway event in May. The youth are learning skills in community outreach and also have been formally trained by Toronto Parks and Trees about local tree species and the importance of green space in the city. 

 Our amazing youth volunteers creating their promotional flyer for the event.

Below they are discussing their plans for outreach. The group will be posting flyers all over the community as well as on social media. 

Go to TREEFORME.CA and register for your free tree (at the CultureLink Youth event on May 27th)!

Youth in Action Volunteer at the BikeHost Year End Party!

Last weekend, the Youth in Action team joined the BikeHost program to help out with their year-end party. This Halloween themed event was so much fun, and the youth were in charge of some of the activities for the party-goers. 

The girls prepping the Kid's Corner. We set up activities for the young children, such as: face painting, colouring pages, pumpkin painting and costumes!

 The Kid's Corner was a hit! And lots of painted faces were walking around!

A well deserved lunch break for our helpers!

Above: Maria and Arya helping out with the apple-bobbing station.

Below: Siviwe, Siviwe and Awais learning how to play ukulele.

Thank you so much to our amazing group of youth volunteers! See you at the next event!

Youth in Action volunteers for BikeHost

The Youth in Action Team went to Birchmount Bluffs to volunteer at a BikeHost Family Event. The evening was full of laughter and activities as the kids waited to recieve their free bike from this amazing program from CultureLink's Sustainable Communities branch. The Youth in Action Team transformed themselves into clowns, badminton coaches, frisbee players and land-swimming competitors to entertain the rambunctious and adorable group of children. 

Layal was a crowd favourite as she decorated the balloons with requests from her audience (mostly princesses and butterflies).

We set up a badminton area for the older kids to play, but it quickly turned into a badminton lesson for the younger ones too!

Above: Youth worker, Rachel, playing keep-away.   

Below: Layal teaching some frisbee skills.

The kids taught us how to have land-swimming races!

Bobbie playing some footie with little Kuthur.

Thank you so much to these amazing Youth in Action volunteers! They all understand and appreciate how much fun it can be to give back to the community!