Jane-Finch community reduces carbon footprint by 2,000 tonnes and gets 2010 Toronto Green Award
Written by M. Ann Phillips
Members and supporters of the Green Change Project accept the award for best green community project. Photo by Tom Kear.
Congratulations to the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre, the entire York West community and all the Green Change Agents that have taken part in the Green Change Agent project over the past year.
At the Green Living Show on April 23, 2010 the Green Change Project won the Toronto Green Award for best community project. For the Green Change Agent Project, which is just celebrating its first year this April, winning the Toronto Green Community Project Award is a real achievement and an indication of the amount of work that the entire community has put into making green the colour of choice for Jane and Finch.
Over the past year, 60 community residents have become Green Change Agents by receiving over 45 hours of training in a variety of areas: how to reduce waste and conserve energy, recycling, how to conduct waste and energy audits, how to use the Zerofootprint software to track their personal carbon footprint and keep track of the amount of CO2 emissions their lifestyle is producing, and how to become more active and take steps to live green. As a result of the energy and waste audits conducted by the Green Change Agents, the community has reduced its combined carbon emissions by over 2,000 tonnes. Now this is the real accomplishment!
There was a crowd of Jane-Finch community residents at the Toronto Green Awards to support the project. They all would have liked to be on stage to accept the award, but the person who represented the group was Rosemarie Powell, Assistant Executive Director, who was one of the originators of the idea for the project.
Rosemarie Powell at the Toronto Green Awards. Photo by Tom Kear.
“We planted the seed,” said Rosemarie. “It unifies a diverse group of people and organizations.”
As the project moves forward over the next 3 years, expect to see great things as Jane-Finch continues to go green!
Other finalists in the community projects category were Sketch, an art and urban garden project for street involved and homeless youth, and a neighbourhood solar panel project organized by the Neighbourhood Unitarian Universalist Congregation. They each received an Award of Excellence. The Afri-Can Food Basket was also one of the Toronto Green Award finalists in the Local Food category for their urban farm and the work they do to meet the nutritional, health and food security needs of the community.
To see the video of all the finalists, visit the City of Toronto website here.
