New toolkit spreads the word about community canning projects
Posted: April 7, 2011
Categories: News from Sustain Ontario
The West End Food Co-op and the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre are proud to announce the release of the Community Cannery Toolkit “All You Canâ€: a hands-on guide to creating a Community Cannery. The Toolkit is the result of WEFC and PARC’s 2010 collaboration to create Canada’s first Community Cannery. This innovative project developed training and employment opportunities for PARC members and neighbourhood residents, taught over 100 community members traditional home-preserving skills, created new markets for local, sustainable farmers, and preserved hundreds of jars of delicious local produce.
PARC Executive Director Victor Willis said “We were astounded at the level of
interest and demand that the Preserving Project yielded. The collaboration created a remarkable opportunity for our food service to refine recipes and explore partnerships, while developing our kitchen as a social purpose enterprise. Like an unexpected preserve combination, PARC and WEFC have something tasty going on.â€
The Toolkit guides users through the process of creating their own Community Cannery. It deals with how to discover community needs and develop elegant, co-operative programs to meet them. It includes practical, accessible resources like budgets, fundraising information, worksheets and teaching information, tips about food sourcing, and stories of other projects around North America.
This summer WEFC will offer many more workshops and other learning experiences, covering a range of preserving techniques and working closely with local, sustainable farmers. PARC will continue to work to incorporate preserving into their own kitchen and support other hunger-relief agencies to do the same.
The West End Food Co-op is a non-profit multi-stakeholder co-op serving the Western part of Toronto. In addition to running the Sorauren Farmers’ Market the co-op is organizing to open a community food store in Parkdale this year.
PARC is a community centre whose members are adults living with mental health issues, and community members living with food insecurity.
To obtain a free digital copy of the toolkit, co-operatives, non-profits, and social service agencies should contact Katie Sandwell at katie@westendfood.coop.
Information about WEFC and Cannery Programs:
Ayal Dinner:Â ayal@westendfood.coop
(647) 773-6958
Toolkit Information:
Katie Sandwell:Â katie@westendfood.coop
Information about canning at PARC:
Michelle Quintal:Â mquintal@parc.on.ca