St. Jamestown Cafe

One of our members, Rebecca, is spearheading a project to develop a resilience-building community cafe in St. Jamestown. She needs help from her Transition community to get it going and make it successful. Transition Toronto is very happy to be able to support this project and appeal to you for help. Please see the details in our blog post on the Cafe project. If you are interested in helping, please send Rebecca a message through our website.

This could be a great visible manifestation of our Transition efforts as well as something that will keep our communities fed. 

The original blog post on this project, which contains more detail, is reprinted below:

Rebecca and a few of the Transition Don Valley folk are working on developing a community cafe that will build community resilience by offering a place to meet neighbours and buy local, organic food; ensuring that the sustainable food they sell will be affordable; and supporting local food producers. Transition Toronto is very pleased to be able to support this project. THE PROJECT NEEDS YOUR HELP to get off the ground. Here's Rebecca's message about the cafe project:



"The more I learn about the transition our world needs, the more excited I become about the potential of locally grounded economies to truly be part of the web of interconnected wellbeing. As we work to rebuild and recreate local economies, I am increasingly aware of the need to be fully inclusive – which is easier said than done, but when it happens, it’s very rewarding! I’m part of a group that is working to develop a co-operative business, the St James Town Community Café and Food Buying Club. Our mission is to build inclusive community through meaningful engagement and affordable healthy food. Affordable is a key word – we want to support local food producers, while at the same time offering affordable, pay-what-you-can meals to community members, many of whom are living on very low incomes. This is a local issue connected to the national and global issues both of rising inequality and systemic preference for large multinational food producers rather than small sustainable farmers.


We started the Community Cafe project in the spring of 2011, and have built up strong connections among community members and organizations in St James Town. We have held several Café events, serving food prepared by some of the many Cooks who live in the community, and have enjoyed a great turnout! We are engaging in an ongoing process of group education, on food sovereignty, co-op businesses, and community organizing. We have been learning from the experiences of Toronto’s West End Food Co-op, Hamilton’s Skydragon Café/ Homegrown Hamilton, Kitchener’s Queen Street Commons Café, and many others.


As we continue to grow and move forward towards our vision of a healthy, vibrant, fully inclusive food economy, aligned with the economies of nature, I wanted to share our project with the Transition Toronto members – both as one of the many examples of the exciting Transition work that is going on across the city, and as an invitation: we welcome your participation, either as an attendee at an upcoming Café event, or on one of our working groups – if you have skills and knowledge in fundraising, website development, food, farming, permaculture, group development, event planning, and facilitation, or just an enthusiasm for community, we have a place for you!"