Teasing The Green Line’s first-ever engagement outpost in Toronto
We’re partnering with Scadding Court Community Centre on this exciting new project.
Hey y’all! I’ve had a packed month planning The Green Line’s Toronto Housing Crisis Action Journey (check out our handy cost-of-living calculator), and the busy times will continue next month when I’ll be in Perugia, Italy, to speak at the International Journalism Festival (if you’ll be there, let me know!). 🇮🇹
Aside from our latest Action Journey, I’ve also been preoccupied with preparations for The Green Line’s first-ever brick-and-mortar engagement outpost right in the heart of downtown Toronto, launching in May 2024. I’m so, so excited to announce this project partnership — officially titled “Market 707 Community Engagement and Economic Driver Outpost” — with Scadding Court Community Centre in Alexandra Park, a community that’s full of newcomers and young Torontonians. In the Kensington-Chinatown neighbourhood, which encompasses Alexandra Park, more than 56% of the local population is made up of 15- to 44-year-olds, and more than 47% are immigrants. Meanwhile, close to 70% are renters, and the average household income is well below the city average at $57,171.
It’s the ideal place for us to launch our first engagement outpost since The Green Line provides journalism for young and other underserved Torontonians, a demographic that Alexandra Park perfectly encapsulates.
The Scadding team, led by executive director Herman Ellis Jr., is phenomenal and their community centre is a shining example of the impact that happens when community members have the autonomy and decision-making power to create programming from the bottom-up, rather than get their directives from the top-down.
Scadding’s success is due to its unique structure; it’s one of only 10 centres that are part of the City of Toronto's Association of Community Centres (AOCCs). AOCCs have full autonomy to develop programming by their community, for their community. Scadding first became an AOCC in 1975 when it launched, and since then, Herman says it's consistently tripled the funds it receives from the city to develop community-led initiatives.
Here’s what he said about the structure:
“In terms of AOCCs — Association of Community Centres — as a group, we work together to ensure that our community centres behave in a way where it's conducive to our community and welcoming to our community, and that our community continues to guide and provide the thrust for that particular organization….So, you could go to one of the 10 different community centres, and find out it's totally different in terms of what its operations are like, what it does and how it contributes to its own community. And I think that's what's beautiful about a community centre, is that this particular centre represents Alexandra Park, Chinatown, Kensington.”
Part of Scadding’s success is Market 707, a primarily food market made up of shipping containers, offering affordable retail space to emerging entrepreneurs. That’s where we’re setting up our engagement outpost. It's meant to be a place where locals can meet, share stories and brainstorm solutions to issues in Alexandra Park. Hopefully, this will also help bring back some of the foot traffic that local businesses lost during the pandemic.
Starting in May 2024, The Green Line and Scadding Court Community Centre will unveil our engagement outpost in one of Market 707’s shipping containers. Our goal is to create a community newsroom in the thick of the action. What’s more, we’re training eight youth journalists from ages 16 to 29 to report with their neighbourhood, providing them with job skills that’ll help them survive and thrive in a rapidly changing city.
They’ll learn how to connect with fellow community members, and to tell their stories — of which there are many. Gentrification is changing the face of Alexandra Park, so it’s important to preserve local history and culture through storytelling. Although tight-knit, the neighbourhood also doesn’t get much attention from the rest of the city, so one of our goals is to show that there are places worth visiting and businesses worth supporting there.
Ultimately, though, our project isn’t just about Alexandra Park. We believe the lessons we learn here can be applied to other neighbourhoods in Toronto facing similar issues. It's about creating a model that can be adapted and used elsewhere, to help preserve the unique character of diverse and underserved communities across the city.
The Green Line and Scadding Court Community Centre would love your support, so come out and visit us starting this May 2024!
The Green Line: We’re looking for short-form and long-form pitches for video and digital
The Green Line is looking for freelancers interested in short-form and long-form pitches for text-based articles, as well as videos, from experienced reporters based in Toronto that tackle systemic issues in the city through a solutions lens. We offer highly competitive freelance rates. If you’re interested in pitching, please email your resume, cover letter and links to three clips to hello@thegreenline.to.
Congrats
Huge congrats to Camilla Faragalli, a freelancer and former intern for The Green Line, who was one of 11 talented young journalists to receive a 2024 Joan Donaldson CBC News Scholarship! Read Camilla’s most recent feature story, "'The is Our Church: Why Indigenous Fire-Keepers Want to Spread Their Sacred Flame Across Toronto" for TGL.
Quick and Clean
Now that Canada has passed the Online News Act, Google has now kicked off an "open call" process for Canadian news businesses to benefit from its $100 million annual contribution, so learn how to apply here
Check out LION Publishers’ fantastic 2023 annual report, and its valuable summary of challenges facing Canadian news publishers.
Watch this video of my recent appearance on the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s “Emerging Business Models for News” panel, alongside The Peak’s Chang, News Revenue Hub’s Graham Watson-Ringo and The Breach’s Dru Oja Jay.
Shout out to First Nations University of Canada for launching the first four-year Indigenous journalism and communication degree in North America!
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