The YMCA Academy would like to thank Keilhauer for their generous donation of chairs for our new library.
In Sept 2011 The YMCA Academy moved into its new home in the Central YMCA’s north building. The YMCA’s commitment to youth is evident in their stunningly bright and recently remodeled school.
Committed to original design, Keilhauer engineers and manufactures a complete range of office seating and health care seating solutions out of its two Toronto, Ontario facilities. Keilhauer made the revolutionary discovery of gender differences in seated postures and introduced solutions to ensure that both men and women are supported in a task chair, and can adopt postures that bring more oxygenated movement to their bodies. Designed with scrupulous attention to detail, Keilhauer products are built for long life with a conscientious focus on environmental design principles.
The school’s new colours are now complemented by a large selection of Keilhauer chairs.
Keilhauer’s support through their generous gift of chairs (valued at $21,450) is greatly appreciated.
This year’s Evergreen collaboration was funded by Statefarm. It was a year of experiential learning at the Evergreen Brickworks. Staff and Students thoroughly enjoyed our time learning outside the classroom. Thank you Evergreen and Statefarm for supporting our environmental learning!
As a whole school we brought together our newly acquired skills from our year-long Evergreen workshops. This year we focused on three themes: Active Transport, Food Systems & Urban Ecology. These themes flowed easily into our final whole school project – Greening the FDC Childcare Outdoor Playspace.
This year we didn’t just “green” the space. We spent hours with the Evergreen garden consultants to learn about the plants that are appropriate for each area and that are able to be placed in an area with toddlers. Students decided they wanted their gardens to meet the following criteria:
Not poisonous (did you know corn stalks are poisonous?)
Here is where we started. Pretty dismal:
Lower playground – soon to be home to a flower garden and an edible gardenUpper Playground soon the be home to 30 planters and a bare foot path
Our Greening happened over a number of days. We planted seeds and prepared the gardens with help from our Ouje Bougoumou friends:
Exchange group working together. ½ skid of soil and compost to nourish the depleted soil
We helped the preschoolers plant seeds for their edible garden and watched them grow over a month. Beans, Peas, Watermelon, oh my!
We designed all four garden areas (flower area, edible area, planters, bare-foot path and slide area)
Our designs. Each group took leadership over a garden area
The EDIBLE GARDEN GroupSLIDE and BARE FOOT PATH GroupPLANTERS GroupFLOWER GARDEN Group
We planted & we watched our garden grow……
The pre-schooler’s edible garden grown from seeds.Planters BeforePlanters AfterEdible Garden BeforeEdible Garden AfterFlower Garden BeforeFlower Garden AfterA look at the lower playground, greened!
A VERY big thanks to everyone:
• Statefarm for your financial support
• Evergreen for your expertise, planning and collaboration
• Academy students for your hard work and vision!
• Academy staff for your support of this project
• Canada youth exchange for allowing us to host our friends from Ouje Bougoumou
• Ouje Bougoumou staff and youth for your energy and enthusiasm
• The FDC preschoolers and teachers for their wild enthusiasm and watering skills
• Our volunteers and Interns; Rein, Todd, Carla, Micah, Gabe, Nanci, Bob, Paul
• And everyone who has supported our project.
The YMCA Academy HPW3C (Living and Working with children) students had another wonderful visit from the preschool group.
This week the theme was THE ARCTIC. The group worked on readings about Arctic animals, Drawings and a collage of an Arctic food chain and games like: “Simon says” and “What time is it Mr.Wolf”.
On April 26th 2012 The YMCA Academy staff and students joined the Family Development Centre’s childcare kids on their BIG walk in support of the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign!! Thank you to Scholar’s Choice for sponsoring the YMCA Walk for Strong Kids!
Our walk began at 9:30 am on Breadalebane St. We travelled in a parade of singers and banner holders down to College St then up Bay St to Grosvenor St – ending our procession in the Central YMCA gym for bouncy castle fun.
Thank you to all our volunteers and supporters. What an amazing event!
Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!
On Wednesday, April 25, the Central YMCA hosted the Toronto Regional Forum.
Each of the YMCA programs run in the Central Toronto region (including the YMCA Academy) were represented. This forum was the first in hopefully many opportunities for the YMCA staff across Toronto to connect and learn how critical their roles are in the YMCA’s mission of “The YMCA of Greater Toronto is a charity offering opportunities for personal growth, community involvement and leadership “ and vision of “Our communities will be home to the healthiest children, teens and young adults.”
The forum opened with the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s CEO, Medhat Mahdy, sharing his vision on making Toronto communities healthier and YMCA Academy students, Brianna Gillen and Raquel Simpson, sharing their own Y experiences of support.
The forum was an opportunity to share Y stories, updates and insights. A wonderful day of promise and hope!
Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!
