Peel Local Food Literacy in Action
The Peel Local Food Literacy in Action project encourages individuals in Peel to support a healthy and sustainable environment through field-to-table education, urban agriculture, youth leadership, and local food action projects. These initiatives allow our community to connect with nature, understand their impact, and take action to improve their local food systems.
About the Project
The Peel Local Food Literacy in Action project builds on our successful Community Roots project. The project provides support to youth, community groups and schools across Peel in learning more about local food systems and launching local food action projects.
Through this project, we grow organic food and provide urban agriculture training at our Iceland Teaching Garden.
Field-to-table education activities are facilitated at our Community Hub, which includes an on-site demonstration garden and teaching kitchen. At the Community Hub, community members can enhance their cooking and food literacy skills by participating in food transformation activities, such as preserving garden harvest.
The Peel Local Food Literacy in Action project is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Click here to read the Peel Local Food Literacy in Action Project Evaluation Results Summary (2019-2021). This document shares insights about our initiative, activities and outcomes, descriptions of local food action projects, and what we learned during the evaluation of the project.
What’s Happening Right Now?
Young Urban Growers
Join us at the Iceland Teaching Garden for an urban agriculture and social enterprise skills training program for youth (ages 15-25) in Peel. Throughout the year, participants will meet to learn about and discuss local food and urban agriculture topics, work together to grow organic produce, host educational workshops for the community, contribute to our podcast series, lead citizen science initiatives and cook-up their food transformation skills. Hours of involvement in the program can be counted as high school volunteer hours. E-mail dhove@ecosource.ca to join.
Growing for Our Good
The Growing for Our Good program is open to all community members and runs throughout the growing season at the Iceland Teaching Garden. Each session will focus on different sustainable cultivation techniques, soil building strategies, and food system topics.
Local Food Action Projects
Ecosource is supporting three community-led local food action projects to provide non-environmental community agencies in under-served neighbourhoods increased access to nature and field-to-table education.
Events
We have regular urban agriculture and field-to-table events happening at various locations in the community. See our events page for upcoming events.
Contact Us
If you are interested in learning more about the Peel Local Food Literacy in Action project, contact Deanna Hove at dhove@ecosource.ca or 905-274-6222 ext. 307.