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12/20/2017 COMMUNITY KITCHEN - More than MealsCommunity Kitchen is an outreach of Rivers' Edge Community Church.
Since 2009, the Community Kitchen has provided meals, community and comfort as an outreach to the less fortunate in NdG. With servings twice a week at dinner time, of salad - soup - and main course, with dessert, many guests come to spend time with friends, reconnect, and recharge in the company of an accepting and welcoming group of volunteers. When a mechanical failure resulted in a pipe flooding the facilities, a 1-800 helpline and community Facebook page was immediately setup to communicate with the population of guests who were served by the Community Kitchen. This has allowed clients to remain in contact, and to receive updates on a regular basis, despite having very little interaction with the hosting church during renovations and refit. Many clients have little material means, and can only access a toll free number from public payphones. This essential lifeline makes them feel connected to each other and the outreach ministry while the facilities are being repaired.
Our very own team has experienced leadership challenges to produce solutions to ongoing concerns raised by practitioners in Social Housing, Seniors Health, Food Security, and Resource Mapping. By combining Scrum and Agile team efforts, to produce team solutions to real problems, we are able to work within a Smart Cities framework and provide an interdisciplinary response to complex concerns facing todays' society.
Our team has engaged in the Global Leadership Experience on two occaisions - in 2014 (Mr Radford), and in 2017 (Ms St Hillaire). Over several days, new teams meet - explore current social challenges - and provide practical options by consensus to promote human flourishing. Not only is this an excellent exercise in teamwork and personal growth, but on subsequent occaisions we are able to tap into a broad network of interdisciplinary graduate students from various institutions (UQAM, McGill, Concordia), and combine practical experience and current methodology across faculties and disciplines (Legal, Engineering, Fine Arts, Policy and Sustainability, just to name a few) For outstanding results, ask us how we may assist your orgnization today!   Successful completion of project space - Cycle Alimenterre (2016-06) One of the challenges of long winters, in Montreal, is access to fresh produce.
The founders of CYCLE ALIMENTERRE have been working on creating and improving access to fresh local, and affordable produce that reduces our carbon footprint, creates local opportunities for employment, and retains capital into our local economy. It is the business building aspect of fresh food production that garnered interest from Parallel Development. Moving CYCLE ALIMENTERRE's production operations indoors for 6 months of the year proved to be quite challenging - faced with the loss of commercial space, or unreasonable expenses for a promising startup. Enter our business experience paired with Social Innovation. By partnering with a local retailer, CYCLE ALIMENTERRE was able to develop local business distribution, as well as create a working environment within literally steps of their customers. How? Creative financing was the foundation for this initiative. A leasehold improvement, in lieu of rent, contract for this startup business allowed for the reasonable installation of required equipment (lights, ventilation, washing and packaging station) in an otherwise unused section of commercial space. The equitable exchange was essentially the extension of creating a working retail space (office, working, sink and electrical inputs) for the pro-bono exchange of commercial rents. This allowed the group to focus on improvements and market development - instead of worrying about commercial rent expenses at a critical point of startup. By sharing the invested development of viable commercial space, and filling it with a productive client, both sides benefit from gaining a market base, and a solid market supplier. As of November 2016, CYCLE ALIMENTERRE was incorporated as a Workers CoOperative under the guidelines of the province of Quebec. You may contact them as to where their fresh greens are available.   Grace Campbell - Women on the Rise - with Wayne Radford (2015-02-14) Often times, we are asked to consult on fundraising projects - usually on short notice, and sometimes in dire circumstances.
In this case, we were in discussion with WOMEN ON THE RISE, and were able to uncover an asset that the organization had created many years earlier -- a community cookbook of tried and true recipes from previous group attendees. The last printed copy was discovered on a bookshelf in the office, a legacy of tastes and community passed forward to the present day. The challenge was to reformat the book from 8x11 and spiral bound (quite costly to reproduce) to a friendlier and more versatile format that the organization could use in ongoing fundraising efforts. We were able to revise, update, and reissue the cookbook in an easier to use eZINE format, just in time for Valentines' Day 2015. Portable, legible, and readily available -- I would encourage you to contact WOMEN ON THE RISE for your copy today!  BACKGROUND: In Spring 2013, we produced the resulting VEGi (Vertical Edible Gardening Initiative) Manual on how to make your own vertical edible garden from minimal cost materials. DELIVERABLE: An OPEN SOURCE Manual (and PDF) was produced as part of a competitive course in Urban Agriculture at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (with our setup being in the Concordia Greenhouse.) Using consensus project management, and practical AGILE design skills, the project team was able to prototype a hydroponic growing system in a north-facing exposure (with natural light), that was able to produce spinach, strawberries, chives, parsley and bok choi. The resulting manual is available from NEW COLONY FARM, (as a PDF), and the VEGI project continued at Concordia through to Summer 2017, when it was eventually replaced by other projects. If you would like to request a copy of the VERTICAL WINDOW FARM MANUAL (2013), simply complete the following.  |
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