Creating Food-Friendly Neighbourhoods

The Food-Friendly Neighbourhoods pilot project will develop and implement neighbourhood food plans for three communities in northern Toronto: Lawrence Heights, Bathurst-Finch, and Weston-Mt. Dennis.

While there has been a lot of attention on advancing positive change at higher, system-wide levels, there are no practical tools to help communities assess their food needs and initiate action at a local level. This leaves many neighbourhoods knowing that there are food gaps but with little direction on how to start making their communities more food-friendly.

With funding from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario’s Spark Advocacy Grant, the Food-Friendly Neighbourhoods project brings a coordinated approach to improving neighbourhood-level access to food. The food plans will include an evaluation scorecard and provide recommendations for action that will improve the scores in key asset areas.

These plans have four primary objectives:
(1) Catalogue existing community food programs and retail food options
(2) Prioritize community food needs and desired outcomes
(3) Identify opportunities
(4) Point to ways forward to improve neighbourhood food security

The food plans will become living documents that will be updated to reflect changes to food resources in each neighbourhood. The plans will also guide North York Harvest’s decision-making process to help make new agency evaluations and provide a record of initiatives and outcomes for other communities to follow.

The Food-Friendly Neighbourhood Plans will be published in early 2012. For further information about the project, please contact Michael Friedman, Agency Relations Manager at 416-635-7771 ext. 23 or michael [at] northyorkharvest [dot] com.