East End Transition

The East End Transition Enthusiasts (EETE)

The summer of 2009 saw the beginnings of outreach in the Beaches–East York area and eventually led to the forming of an actual group. A “Green Café” series hosted by a couple of Transition Toronto members and their local grassroots group East Toronto Climate Action Group (ETCAG) brought people out to a couple of film screenings on peak oil.

In the discussions that followed, we introduced the concept and format of Transition Initiatives and found that attendees were keen on hands-on “re-skilling” classes. And thus a series of sold-out canning workshops with Chef Emerie Brine from Bernardin followed!

Workshops so far have ranged from canning fruits and vegetables (now in its second year), home energy audits, and medicinal herbs to soap-making.

In February 2010, Mary-Margaret and Martina presented “Sustainable Beach: Transition Towns and your Community” to an audience of 40+ people, including local City Councillor Sandra Bussin. An eager participant then announced forming a book study group of The Transition Handbook and led a 6-week study group, which she hosted and led. (Thank you, Marel!!)

The group discovered a shared enthusiasm for food, so they set their focus on food production in their urban front and back gardens, with future plans for lessons in food preserving. Thus came into existence the East End Transition Enthusiasts (EETE) with a sub-group on food growing called Growers’ Collective. They set an action plan and then they dug, they fertilised, and they planted – tending their own gardens, while also working a 400 square-foot shared plot and participating in the East York community garden.

Other activities by EETE so far have been:
• a screening of the “In Transition 1.0” movie
• several Transition Café informal get-togethers
• home-made and painted wooden lawn signs to advertise gardens ‘in Transition’ (see photos in “Media”)
• crabapple picking and canning (see Blogs)

And for 2011:

• seed orders for the coming growing season and extending the food gardens

• weekly or bi-weekly meetings to plan activities for the year, e.g. expanding membership, which gardens to grow food in and what to grow

• a couple of field trips to educate our group

• more awareness-raising events, e.g. film nights, open space meetings, Transition Cafes, and a new Prep-Eat-Educate-Learn (PEEL) series

• tentatively two community events: Crabapple event in August/September

The intake area for EETE currently spans from Coxwell Ave to east of Victoria Park Avenue, and Lake Ontario up to Danforth Avenue. We would love to shrink the intake area by seeing more neighbourhood ‘pods’ develop in the east end! 

For info and next meeting date contact:

• Marel, msmith7788 [at] gmail.com for general questions about EETE and the Growers' Collective
• Martina, greencomms [at] yahoo.ca for Transition Cafés, film nights, outreach