WE’VE NEVER DONE ONE OF THESE BEFORE: AN ISSUE DEVOTED TO OUR REGION’S ‘CHANGEMAKERS’. FRANKLY, WE’VE NEVER REALLY FELT THE NEED. AFTER ALL, THE TOQUE TEAM HAS ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT THE FOLKS FEATURED IN EACH ISSUE OF THIS MAGAZINE ARE CHANGEMAKERS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT: PATHFINDING RESTAURANTEURS WHO FOCUS ON SUSTAINABLY-SOURCED INGREDIENTS; TRAILBLAZING BUSINESS OWNERS WHO PRIORITIZE PEOPLE AT LEAST AS MUCH AS PROFIT; PURPOSEFUL CRAFTSFOLK WHO EMPHASIZE QUALITY OVER QUANTITY; ACTIVIST VISIONARIES WHO DEVOTE THEIR LIVES TO RESOLVING OUR COMMUNITIES’ COMPLEX CHALLENGES.
AND YET HERE WE ARE – COMMITTING AN ENTIRE ISSUE OF TOQUE TO A RELATIVELY SMALL GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS WHO, IN OUR EYES, DESERVE THE HALLOWED TITLE ‘CHANGEMAKER’. SOME ARE PATHFINDERS. OTHERS ARE DISRUPTERS. MANY ARE ADVOCATES. YET ALL SHARE A COMMON VISION TO MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES BETTER PLACES TO LIVE, WORK, PLAY. ULTIMATELY, THEY ADVANCE JOY IN THIS FAR-FROM-PERFECT WORLD.
IN ‘THE JOY EXPERIMENTS’, A BOOK ONE OF OUR CHOSEN CHANGEMAKERS, SCOTT HIGGINS, RECENTLY CO-WROTE WITH PAUL KALBFLEISCH, THE AUTHORS POSIT THAT ‘THE FIRST CRITICAL STEP TO A BETTER WORLD’ MIGHT WELL BE OUR ABILITY TO FEEL ‘A SENSE OF JOY WITH OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS, WHOM WE MAY NOT EVEN KNOW.’ WE TEND TO AGREE. CHANGEMAKING AT ITS BEST, TO BE SURE, IS AN ACT OF ‘JOY-MAKING’. AND, WE WOULD VENTURE, VICE VERSA. BOTH TASKS TAKE PASSION, DETERMINATION, AND GRIT. AND YET BOTH ARE WORTH THE RIDE – LEAVING US ALL, TO PARAPHRASE ‘THE JOY EXPERIMENTS’, CONNECTED TO THE PEOPLE AND THINGS THAT FILL OUR LIVES WITH PURPOSE AND MAKE OUR WORLD BIGGER.
IT’S BEEN A HUMBLING EXPERIENCE, THIS – RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH SO MANY INCREDIBLE FOLKS WHILE WE’VE PIECED THIS ISSUE TOGETHER. IT’S BEEN INSPIRING, TOO. TO BE SURE, SPENDING ANY AMOUNT OF TIME WITH FOLKS LIKE AMIT MEHTA (OF GOOD CO PRODUCTIONS), KARYN BOSCARIOL (QUEEN OF CRAFT), CHRISTINA MANN (TASTE REAL), JULIA GRADY (10C), THE AFOREMENTIONED SCOTT HIGGINS (HIP DEVELOPMENTS) AND EVERYONE ELSE YOU’RE ABOUT TO MEET TENDS TO MOVE A PERSON TOWARD POSITIVE ACTION OF SOME SORT.
SO CRACK THE SPINE. GET INVIGORATED. BE INSPIRED. MAKE SOME CHANGE.
CHRISTINA MANN
LOCAL FOOD CHAMPION
TASTEREAL.CA
PROFILE & PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Christina Mann loves getting up close and guided farm and food tours that allow folks personal with the food she eats – and, for well intimate access to Wellington County farms, over a decade now, she’s been helping others markets, nurseries, and more. Christina also do the same. As Coordinator of Taste Real, a oversees the biennial (and inestimable) Taste Wellington County program that promotes local food and facilitates invaluable connections among food businesses, consumers, craftspeople, and farmers alike, Christina devotes her life to providing folks around the region with a better understanding of where good food comes from: how it’s grown and processed, and how it gets from local farms to local markets and restaurants, and finally onto our plates.
Growing up in rural southern Germany provided Christina with a strong appreciation for locally- produced food grown in a sustainable manner. After graduating from studies in Hospitality, she worked in Germany, Spain, and the UK before settling in Guelph, where her eclectic experience proved invaluable for her pacesetting work in our region.
At Taste Real Christina manages a handful of innovative food initiatives that offer local folks consequential experiences poised to open their eyes to the hard work and sacrifice that goes into growing, nurturing, and harvesting food. Along with her colleagues at the County, she co-ordinates the wildly popular Rural Romps, for example, held each spring and fall: self-
Real Guelph-Wellington Local Food Map – a good ol’ fashioned paper map detailing farms, markets, retailers, restaurants, breweries, andotherbusinessesthatfeaturefoodgrown in Wellington County. The Taste Real Food Experience Guide – a pocketable print guide that lists farm and food experiences local to Guelph and Wellington County – also bears her stamp.
And when Christina – along with her small team of local food heroes – isn’t planning public-facing local food initiatives, she’s working behind the scenes: organizing business-to-business networking and workshops, advocating for farmers and markets at governmental levels, and making sure Taste Real’s over-two hundred members have their voices heard. Voices like Dana Thatcher’s (of Thatcher Farms), for example, who embraces Christina as both ‘an active advocate,’ and ‘a vibrant, beautiful friend’ whose love for people and good food ‘is reflected in her relentless efforts to create awareness about all that is good in the local food economy.’ Amen to that.
KWFAMOUS
AMPLIFYING ARTS, ANIMATING COMMUNITY
KWFAMOUS.COM
PROFILE & PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
I can recall the first time I spotted someone in downtown Kitchener wearing a striking tee- shirt emblazoned with the names ‘ethel’, ‘jane’, ‘morty’, and ‘phil’ – one stacked above the other in a pleasing retro font. While this seemingly random word soup won’t mean much to those who haven’t lived in Kitchener-Waterloo, to those of us who enjoyed our formative teens and early twenties rabblerousing along King Street in Uptown Waterloo, they meant – and mean – the world. Ethel’s Lounge. The Jane Bond Café. Morty’s Pub. Phil’s Grandson’s Place: four fantastic Uptown watering holes where nights were spent and memories were made. And the tee: a brilliant homage to a hometown scene.
The garment is the brainchild of KWFamous: a Kitchener-Waterloo-based non-profit that’s all about, in their words, ‘celebrating people, places, and things in KW (and sometimes even Cambridge) through merch, events, and shenanigans.’ Run by the wonderfully-ambitious team of Robin, Sam, and (until recently) Elaine, KWFamous is, in the simplest of terms, an initiative that works hard to put the KW creative scene on the map – and to inspire community while they’re at it. And they’re doing one helluva job – one unique celebration at a time.
There’s the KWFamous Roller Disco: an over- the-top event held weekly over a one-month span. Featuring deejays, skate rentals, lessons, food trucks, themed days and, of course, maker vendors, it’s a party. There’s also the Art Hop: an annual two-day celebration over Labour Day weekend that includes a live music festival, outdoor gallery walking tours, garden parties, breakdancing, a skateboard battle, local artist- curated experiences, and vendors galore. Then the Winter Patio Party: an annual outdoor experience that transforms Kitchener-Waterloo into a giant gameboard. The more patio parties you visit, the more points you get. Fire dancing, snow pong, curling, tarot reading and more – what better way to support the local restaurant scene and meet new friends? And, of course, there’s the KWFamous Pop-Up Shop. Run each year through December, the shop features products from over eighty local artists, makers, and other creatives.
And, of course, there’s merch. Tee-shirts. Hoodies. Sticker packs. All about Kitchener- Waterloo. All beautifully designed. ‘The KWFamous team does so much to hype up Waterloo Region,’ Kitchener resident (and all around advocate) Hilary Abel tells me. ‘Elaine, Robin, and Sam are an endless pool of energy and creativity. Their events are incredible, they’re always innovating.’ I can’t wait to see what they get up to next.
COURT DESAUTELS
INDUSTRY TRAILBLAZER
NEIGHBOURHOODGROUP.COM
PROFILE & PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Shortly before meeting Court Desautels at one of his restaurants, The Wooly in downtown Guelph, to interview and photograph him for this profile, I get a text: ‘I’m stuck putting out fires at Borealis,’ he writes – referring to his more upscale south end joint. ‘Can we meet here instead?’ Of course. When I arrive, Court’s dealing with a number of issues, from fixing a heating problem in the basement to resurrecting an uncooperative point-of-sale (or POS) system to putting out an actual fire in the place’s sound system. All before the place opens. All in a day’s work.
As President of The Neighbourhood Group of Companies – a restaurant conglomerate whose stable includes the aforementioned Wooly and Borealis (with locations in Guelph and Kitchener) as well as Miijidaa and Park Eatery – Court’s certainly got his hands full. And while the minutiae of the everyday (heating issues, POS systems, more) keep him busy, it’s The Neighbourhood Group’s more ambitious endeavours that have resulted in Court’s gaining a reputation as a trailblazer in the industry. Consider these fun facts. All of The Neighbourhood Group restaurants are carbon neutral. More than eighty percent of the restaurants’ food and drinks are sourced locally. All of the restaurants’ seafood is sustainably sourced. And, over the past three decades, the restaurant group has raised over a quarter million dollars for various conservation organizations. While it’s certainly taken a large team many years to implement these successes, today it is Court who drives them forward.
A true believer in the principle of people and planet first, Court doesn’t let either fade from view. His commitment to the well-being of people is revealed in the fact that The Neighbourhood Group is one of the only restaurant consortiums in the world to be certified as a B Corporation. As such, team members have access to health insurance, an education fund, and health and wellness programs – benefits that continued through COVID lockdowns. ‘It was important for us to support our staff through the pandemic,’ Court observes. ‘One of the ways we did this was by putting in place an Employee Relief Fund, which we underwrote by selling restaurant gift certificates with one hundred percent of sales supporting the fund.’ The result? Sixty thousand dollars made available to restaurant staff, who were invited to apply for grants to help them through the slow times.
Robert Swan, a writer and adventurer whose sensibilities and commitments mirror Court’s, has observed that ‘the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.’ It’s the truth of statements like this that would drive Court Desautels to become, as much as possible, that ‘someone else.’
SARAH NICOLE LANDRY
FACILITATING CONVERSATION
@THEBIRDSPAPAYA
PROFILE BY DANI KUEPFER; PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Sarah Nicole Landry created her blog, ‘The Birds Papaya’, as a mom of three young kids in an effort to connect with people who shared her experiences. Fifteen years later that little blog has transformed into a community of millions anchored by her various social accounts as well as her weekly podcast. ‘I’m journaling my life online,’ Sarah tells me. ‘It’s what I’ve been doing this whole time – and the showing up is still the hardest part.’
Sarah uses her signature reflective writing style to unpack conversations around body confidence and self-love, and invites her readers, followers, and listeners into her own world of raising kids, divorce and remarriage, and blended families. ‘I can only speak to my own experiences and create space for other people to see a bit of themselves through that,’ she explains. And they certainly do: every day, thousands of people are engaging in the online conversations she initiates.
I’m surprised to hear that Sarah is solely responsible for running her social accounts. ‘It’s me!’, she exclaims. ‘When I went full time with ‘The Birds Papaya’, I decided it always has to be me behind my profiles. It can be really difficult to trust what’s real online, and I knew I had to be on the right side of that.’
So, yes, she reads all of her messages. And she answers them, too – even the ones that are less than adoring. For Sarah, interacting with her community is at the core of her work, and much of that interaction happens in her DMs. ‘I get to hear so many beautiful, impactful stories, and that’s such a huge contribution to me. Being present with the hurtful things, offering that person an opportunity to have a conversation, is something I also feel compelled to do.’
There’s a refreshing tone of responsibility when Sarah speaks of the online world much of her work lives in. ‘I’ve always believed that there is good in everything,’ she offers. ‘When it comes to social media, we have to remind ourselves that we determine our own experiences. There will be good, bad, and everything in between. We need to be accountable for what we’re producing, of course, but also for what we’re consuming.’
It’s easy to discount the world inside our screens as ‘not real’, but there’s undeniable power in an online community such as this one. The metrics and the partnerships offer structure, but Sarah’s real work is in creating an accessible public space – one where people are invited to find new ways to express themselves, and encouraged to show up, to make meaningful connections.
BANGISHIMO
ARTIST & ACTIVIST
BANGISHIMO.CA
PROFILE BY DANI KUEPFER; PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Bangishimo is an IndigiQueer Anishinaabe community leader and artist committed to creating spaces for Indigenous and LGBTQ+ folks to connect with each other and the land and create powerful futures together. Originally from Couchiching First Nation on Treaty 3 territory, Bangishimo currently resides, creates, and advocates in Kitchener, on the traditional territory of the Anishnaabeg and Haudenosaunee Peoples. Mentorship, art, and activism – these things in large measure define their multidimensional reach within the region. ‘We often receive invitations to speak at events and celebrations within the region,’ they tell me, ‘and it has become an opportunity for us to pass the torch to the young Indigenous folks in our community. We’re doing the work of creating leaders that create leaders.’
Drawing on a fifteen-year background in social work, Bangishimo co-founded O:se Kenhionhata:tie (also known as Land Back Camp) with collaborator Amy Smoke in 2020. The camp is a gathering space for queer young folks to cultivate their Indigenous cultural heritages–anddemandlandback.Afilmonthe camp’s formation, titled ‘Stories from Land Back Camp’, was recently released by Bangishimo and co-founder Amy Smoke.
A noteworthy photographer and filmmaker, Bangishimo is also the City of Kitchener’s current (and first Indigenous) Artist in Residence. Central to their project is ‘The Medicines We Carry’, a fantastical portrait series that blends traditional botanical medicines with futuristic imagery and which will debut at the artist’s gallery show in KWAG in February of 2024. Other photographs – a mix of vivid landscapes andintimateportraits–canalsobefoundinthe Ken Seiling Museum, and Bangishimo’s studio at 44 Gaukel Creative Workspace. ‘This isn’t a story of martyrdom or victimhood,’ Bangishimo observes of the work; ‘these portraits cast Indigenous folks in the future tense.’
Bangishimo’s photography functions as a tool for advocacy, as a way of telling stories in a language that can be understood across cultures. Bangishimo’s craft takes them around the world, but they are persuaded that it is the stories they are making visible, so to speak, at home – the ones that may have been forgotten, ignored, or perhaps never told – that are causing real change in real time.
Bangishimo has been instrumental in Truth and Reconciliation accountability on city and regional levels and has ignited a conversation between the City and the community about the repurposing of the old Charles Street Bus Terminal. Their vision is an Indigenous community hub – gathering spaces, affordable housing, daycare, urban gardens, land for sacred fires, and more. ‘It’s by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people,’ Bangishimo remarks, while calling, with their partners, for a permanent and expanded home for the growing Indigenous and allied community.
MARVA WISDOM
POSITIVE THINKER
PROFILE BY DANI KUEPFER; PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
‘The work that I do is who I am,’ Marva tells me, and those who know Marva would surely agree: that short phrase beautifully encapsulates her, a woman whose constructive reach in the community is so palpable. Marva Wisdom is not a new face in the Royal City – you’ve likely crossed her path in some capacity. Perhaps you’ve served alongside her on a committee (YM-YWCA, the Guelph Citizenship Committee, the Canadian Centre for Diversity, etc.) or rubbed shoulders with her at iconic Guelph events like the ArtsEverywhere Festival and Rotary’s Canada Day celebrations. In fact, the list of her contributions to our communities seems unending. She is an effortless collaborator and a powerful leader driven by an abiding belief in belonging, healing, empowerment, love.
When, as a young Jamaican immigrant, Marva moved with her family to small-town Ontario, she was overwhelmed by the discrimination she came up against from peers and adults alike. Equally distressing was the academic streaming she encountered in high school, which forced her off the path she had been working her entire life towards: attending university. (She would later earn a Master’s degree in Leadership from the University of Guelph.) But it was in her own adolescent search for belonging and safety that her legacy began to unfold. Even while people and circumstances failed her, she was sustained by an innate wisdom that allowed her relentlessly to seek out opportunity and move her own positive vision forward.
‘I just want to be – in any way that helps make a difference – the person I would have wanted others to be when I was growing up,’ Marva reflects decades later.
Co-author of Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love, Marva is a public speaker and media performer, a facilitator, a mentor, an advocate, an activist. Her work on the Black Experience Research Project (GTA), besides being widely cited for its ‘lived-experience’ focus in black communities, informed her role as Lead Advisor for the City of Guelph’s award-winning Community Plan, which addressed systemic racism gaps in our community. She was the founding president of the Guelph Black Heritage Society and has been instrumental in the #ChangeStartsNow antiracism project. She has led a number of successful fundraisers (notably, United Way Guelph-Wellington’s $5M campaign) and has received several highly regarded awards, including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the YWCA’s Women of Distinction Award, and Volunteer of the Year for her leadership with a major provincial political campaign.
‘There has been no clear path for my life,’ Marva shares, ‘I think of it as a fullness to be discovered, rather than an emptiness to be filled.’ Now that’s powerful – and inspiring – positive thinking.
SCOTT HIGGINS
CITY BUILDER
HIPDEVELOPMENTS.COM
PROFILE & PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Scott Higgins is a developer of a different sort. Yes, he builds cities – as developers are prone to do. But he’s also a city builder; this is, someone committed to positive change to the cultural, social, environmental, physical, and economic components of cities. Herein lies the difference. For Scott, President of Waterloo-based HIP Developments, cities are ‘the true habitat of the human spirit’ and building out community is as important as building up condos. In Scott’s mind, any great building project should include public art, civic squares, vibrant spaces where folks can connect with each other and the environment around them. For it is in these public spaces – free spaces – where, Scott argues, community is born, creativity is nurtured, and, perhaps most importantly, collaboration and joy are realized and enhanced.
And, luckily for all of us, Scott’s vision has been – and continues to be – implemented across our region.
Case in point: HIP’s Gaslight District multi- use project in downtown Galt. Developed on the former Southworks foundry site, Gaslight combines condominium towers with a plethora of public-facing amenities – including, at its core, an expansive urban park that features stages (for free live performances in warmer months), Canada’s largest jumbotron (to broadcast live sporting events), and unique interactive installations and attractions (including in- ground sensors that enable visitors to ‘play’ the jumbotron with their feet while they travel through the space). All public-facing. All free of charge. Because, as Scott sees it, you can judge how livable a city is by gauging how much the citizens can do without spending any money.
For those with a few dollars in their pockets, Gaslight’s urban park is lined with wonderful opportunities for engagement and delight: an elevated tavern, craft brewery, oyster bar, event venue (with the region’s most dazzling public art installation: Philip Beesley’s ‘Meander’), and more.
Because he’s a vehement supporter of creators who share his passion for city building, Scott’s good work certainly doesn’t begin and end with HIP’s building projects. It’s no coincidence that HIP has been a proud supporter of a plethora of local creative initiatives: from Digital Sabbath’s ‘Business Unusual’ video documentary series to Chef Nick Benninger and Taylor Jackson’s ‘Nick And Taylor Make A Food Show’; from the Waterloo-based ‘LAUNCH’ STEAM program for kids to the magazine you’re holding in your hands. (Indeed, Scott’s support of TOQUE has always been seen by Cai and me as a sort of ‘waymarker’ – that is, as evidence that we’re on the right track in our own attempts at building community, at city building.)
And as if this isn’t enough, during the pandemic Scott also became an author. Working alongside long-time collaborator (and fellow city builder) Paul Kalbfleisch, Scott co-authored ‘The Joy Experiments’, a sort of how-to guide for aspiring city builders looking to make change in their own hometowns. So, yes, Scott Higgins is a developer. And so much more.
KARYN BOSCARIOL
QUEEN OF CHARITY
@QUEENOFCRAFTBEER
PROFILE BY DANI KUEPFER; PORTRAIT BY CHRIS TIESSEN
Karyn Boscariol, best known as Bosco, has been a champion for diversity in our local beer scene for over a decade. Inspired to create a more inclusive (and, frankly, more interesting) space in the traditionally male-dominated craft beer industry while also raising money for charity, she founded Queen of Craft (QoC) through Wellington Brewery in 2013: a lineup of pleasurable, accessible beer education events aimed at women and non-binary folks. These annual events became the means by which a thriving, diverse community has flourished, with Karyn at the wheel, charting new territory with each passing year. ‘Queen of Craft is about community and beer and fun,’ Karyn declares, ‘but it’s also a platform to elevate the work and voices of the organizations fighting for diversity and dignity in our community.’
Under Karyn’s leadership, QoC’s events, merch and, of course, beer have raised over $65,000 in support of their long-time partner Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, an organization that provides vital services to domestic violence survivors in our own neighbourhoods. Thousands more have been raised through beer collabs and satellite events in neighbouring cities, the beneficiaries including Black Women in Motion, Habitat for Humanity, and the sexual assault centres of Hamilton and KW. The ever-evolving events feature talks by industry experts from a variety of backgrounds: from farmers to lab techs, owners to engineers. The visions expressed in these events mirror contemporary cultural conversations concerning, for example, things like workplace allyship and sober-curiosity. In the off-season, the QoC Brew Team invites non-industry folks to get hands-on with the brewing process, releasing several unique beersthroughout the year, each label featuring a local artist’s design. This year’s headline brew (an IPA by Wellington Brewery) sports a killer label by Stephanie Cheng – and you can find it in LCBOs this March, with twenty five cents per can to be donated to Women in Crisis.
Queen of Craft celebrates its ‘Ten Year Reunion’ this March with its fan-favourite beer & cheese pairing event, and a prom-themed blowout in the Guelph Farmers’ Market space. The events are sure to be savoured for what they include – tasty, locally-brewed pints; artfully- curated food pairings; and stimulating conversations about industry trends and beer theory. What’s more, they’re an opportunity to revel in a space that didn’t exist ten years ago. Through a tenacious shared vision and evolving conversations, Bosco and the folks around her have carved out a beautiful space where women and non-binary individuals who have a desire to make and drink beer are celebrated and supported, empowered and inspired.