Idea Bank
There are so many great ideas in the Idea Bank. See something you'd like to contribute to? Let us know!
Select an Area of Interest: All Arts & Culture Community Vitality Environment Food Youth
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Community Suicide Prevention Training
The #1 reason you’d have the opportunity to use physical first-aid is on a person having an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. However, you’re 4 times more likely to meet someone who will attempt suicide. Suicide IS preventable through training and compassion. The impact of suicide is far reaching. Just like with physical first-aid, suicide first-aid saves lives. Also like physical first-aid a broad demographic can, and should, be trained in suicide first-aid. We want to make suicide first-aid trainings available and affordable in Guelph. Together we can build a suicide-safer community.
Feed it Forward
Food insecurity is a serious problem affecting over 1 in 6 households in Guelph. The Guelph Food Bank’s role in fighting this problem is critical. However, a lack of funding strongly limits its impact in our community. Feed it Forward's aim is to provide those funds by creating a fundraising and educational system involving high school students. We will form specialized high school clubs in Centennial College and Ross Vocational Institute. Its members will then design and carry out fundraising campaigns with the Food Bank, allowing them to gain leadership skills and required volunteer hours.
The Guelph Youth Farm project
Guelph Youth Farm project will be run by and for youth. The Farm will: - be located near downtown Guelph, and modeled after several successful youth farm projects in cities around North America. - operate as a social enterprise growing fresh food for the community; - provide training and employment for youth; - offer solutions to systemic community challenges in lower income and more vulnerable neighborhoods in Guelph, such as the Onward Willow neighbourhood west of the Farm; and, - serve as an outdoor "farm park" space for public events and workshops.
Try on a Career Week
The Career Education Council in collaboration with local community partners will launch "Try on a Career Week" as a platform to generate inspiration for youth to consider local opportunities to pursue meaningful employment and fulfilling careers. In our first year, this project will include direct coordination of career events for 10 schools/2000+ students who will experience touch points with inspiring local career representatives! Through facilitated mini-events, students will explore careers and gain valuable insights to help with future decisions about education, training and employment. Upon request, we will also provide resources, ideas and connections to guest speakers for additional schools.
Help The Royal City Roller Girls roll into the future!
The Royal City Roller Girl are seeking collaborators to locate, finance and run a 10,000 square foot self-sustained multi-use space in the City of Guelph to hold practices and games. This space could also be used by other groups limited by the dearth of recreation space in Guelph. Established in 2010 our skater-run league is led by a skilled and passionate board of directors and now includes five teams made up of 70 skaters, 25 officials and a new youth program. In 2017 our five teams will participate in 22 games and 4 tournaments from Guelph to Chicago.
Azadi Youth Productions – art making for peace and freedom
Immigrant Services – Guelph Wellington wants to launch a refugee and newcomer youth driven social enterprise group called Azadi Youth Productions as a vehicle for youth to share their stories; learn new skills; help build an inclusive Guelph through community education; and enrich our cultural landscape. Azadi means freedom in Persian and the group will work on arts multi-disciplinary productions that speak to the concepts of peace-building and what it means to live in freedom.
The Golden Bus
The Golden Bus is a mobile collaborative arts space built out of an ex-transit bus. We can be a recording studio, small concert venue, and/or host zine fairs, small-scale publication and album manufacturing, film screenings, traveling thrift store, and so many other amazing things! Portable and affordable, we will work with Guelph artists and organizations to co-present awesome events...anywhere! Already we have partnered with the Guelph Film Festival, Ed Video, Kazoo Fest, The Guelph Comedy Festival, and MADE: Urban Arts. We are looking for funding to support a concert series that will promote local, emerging, and youth artists, as well as long and short-term parking options.
The Living Food Box
The Living Food Box project is a simple, portable and creative teaching tool to demonstrate to a wide variety of populations how to grow their own food. Since there is acknowledged agreement from teachers and support workers that improving access to fresh locally grown food will improve the nutrition and physical wellbeing status of marginalized populations. They have identified this project as a priority in our community, and will help support their goals.
