Calling on all those who support community agriculture, indigenous black food sovereignty, equity, and food justice to please sign this petition and join us in demanding that the City of Toronto grant a group of local leaders in Etobicoke (Rexdale) permission to transform an unused piece of land into a community-led food security garden on Tandridge crescent! Based in The Elms neighborhood, the organization Queen’s Levelling Up has been working diligently with its partners to bring this beautiful vision to life in their community. 
 

We all have a right to healthy food and if the pandemic has taught us anything it is that access is not equal. In a community already struggling, covid has exacerbated the need for local and responsive actions to fill gaps in current service provision in the Tandridge community. Queen’s Levelling Up, a group of strong Indigenous African descendant women are leading the charge to tackle this inequity by getting our hands on the earth. 
 

Our vision is simple: Transform an unused, out-of-the-way section of Summerlea park into an acre of edible food forest and community run food justice gardens. From this space, we will be able to produce thousands of pounds of organic fruits and veggies by cooperatively growing a sustainable food security system in our own backyard. At the same time creating a healing-centred public space and teaching food-centered self-determination. 
 

It's obvious that good fresh food, grown by the same hands that eat it is of benefit to all involved. This space will provide skill-building, youth engagement and entrepreneurship opportunities, increased health, wellness and community engagement to the neighborhood, leading to stability and peace. It will also address the many issues of food insecurity, racial justice, and systemic inequality faced by the members of this community. We need the City to support community-led initiatives that are helping strengthen our community, not pile more issues on our neighborhood like they are with the proposed 100+ unit vulnerable housing project.
 

The City of Toronto has encouraged community gardens, yet a group of BIPOC women intent on growing organic food in their own communities to feed themselves and the community at large have been refused. The reasons for this refusal are unclear and instead of discussing with the community members, the city has decided to put even more vulnerable and low-income people into the neighborhood through a module building project, thus putting even more strain on an already difficult socio-economic situation.
 

This initiative, anchored by a group of mothers represents hope, healing, and vitality for the community and the city at large. Please consider supporting this project. Support hope in the Elms! For more information please contact:

If you live in Ward 1 / The Elms and would like to see this project come to life, or believe in food justice and the importance of community-led agriculture, please help us in convincing the City that we need this project more than an empty patch of grass!