Volunteers needed to help at Easter egg hunt By Kasy Pertab
Volume 48 No. 2
BEACHMETRO.COM
March 19, 2019
COMMUNITY CENTRE 55 is looking for volunteers to help out at the Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt in Kew Gardens. The event is in need of face painters to create designs for children such as bunny faces and any other Easter-related art. The annual egg hunt will be held on Friday, April 19 from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. at 97 Main Street. This is the second annual Eas-
ter egg hunt at Kew Gardens. This year’s event will feature free face painting, children’s entertainment, lots of chocolate and an agegrouped egg hunt with a visit from the Easter bunny. Entertainment will also feature Juno-award winning group Sonshine and Broccoli, along with a performance from Peppa Pig. Centre 55’s special events and volunteer coordinator, Jade Maitland, added how special the event will be.
“It’s a unique event and a great location,” Maitland said. “It will also be one of the largest and best Easter egg hunt events in the city.” The event is organized by Lido Chilelli, who also organizes the Beaches Jazz Festival. He said this will be something children will be looking forward to. “I definitely think it will be like Disneyland in the Beach,” Chilelli said. Those interested in volunteering as a face painter can contact Maitland at jade@centre55.com
Meeting on Main Street plans cite traffic as key concern By Nina Rafeek
PHOTO: RUSHANTHI KESUNATHAN
Donna Lynn Watson, who opened the Healthy Earth Bilingual Nursery School in the Beach in 1992, will be retiring at the end of this school year. The school began in a space at St. Aidan’s Church and moved to its present location at 2206 Queen St. E. in 2006.
Healthy Earth school founder and director Donna Watson set to retire after 27 years By Rushanthi Kesunathan
HEALTHY EARTH school is closing its doors and saying goodbye to the community after 27 years in the Beach. Donna Lynn Watson, founder and director of Healthy Earth Bilingual Nursery School, opened the school in 1992. She was motivated to teach young children more than just play, but also to teach them about the environment and its purpose. When you enter the doors, you’ll immediately be filled with a sense of warmth and positive atmosphere.
Here, its youngest learners not only get a head start in learning but a second home. And, they’re not just taking big leaps toward academic learning, but in life. They’re learning to ask questions and fundraising to help others. Before opening the school, Watson was an actor and director who appeared in television commercials and small community theatre plays in a private New York theatre company. “I worked with very young children in New York. I was directing them, teaching them how to memorize lines, and think critically,” Watson said. “I understood the
power of teaching children through theatre.” Early childhood education is powerful and children are capable of learning way more than what adults give them credit for, she said. After returning to Canada, Watson went back to school to earn a degree in Early Childhood Education. She then started working at various schools in the Beach and realized she wasn’t teaching children the way she hoped to. It didn’t fit her philosophy of childhood education, she said. “I was seeing that other schools
strictly were play-based and only some learning was involved but not in the way I wanted to see them learn,” Watson said. So, Watson naturally branched out and opened up Healthy Earth School at St. Aidan’s Church before moving to her current location (2206 Queen St. E.) in 2006. The school began as a nursery, and within six months expanded into a private Kindergarten after its young children showed an eagerness to learn reading, writing and solving math problems, she said. “We also started teaching about Continued on Page 5
THE CITY of Toronto hosted the second community meeting for the Main Street Planning Study recently, and concerns about how the new developments will impact the neighbourhood was at the forefront of the discussion. Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford kicked off the March 4 presentation, referring to the proposed east Danforth plan as “the first cut of ideas” in the “heart of the community”. The area of study is approximately 28 hectares, or according the City of Toronto, 28 sports fields, that sits roughly from Main Street and Danforth Avenue, south to Gerrard Street, with borders at Dawes Road and Ted Reeve Drive on the east side. More than 75 people attended the meeting at Hope United Church, and some community members wanted to know how the city is going to address traffic congestion, lack of affordable housing and sewage issues that proposed development to the area will bring. One resident said that increased traffic resulting from new developments in the area is “not feasible” with Main Street being only one traffic lane in each direction. The current “extreme traffic conditions” have resulted in traffic jams and speeding cars from Gerrard Street and Woodbine Avenue, up to Danforth Avenue, the resident said. Other residents wanted to know what is being done about sewage issues causing flooding around Stephenson Park and surrounding Continued on Page 4
550 Adelaide St E | 416.865.9777
vwtoronto.ca
Tiguan
1695 Eglinton Ave E | 416.751.3131 Jetta
donvalleyvolkswagen.ca