BUILDING OUR COMMUNITY TOGETHER

from Neighbour Paper Feb 2023 Newmarket Aurora

Get to Know YOUR NEIGHBOURS

What a fantastic yet busy start to the year! It has been a pleasure to attend numerous community events over the past few weeks to celebrate, congratulate, and recognize members and new businesses in our community. I had the honour of starting off the New Year by visiting CMHA York Region to congratulate them on receiving a Resilient Communities Fund grant of $104,000.00, visiting Food Basics located on Yonge St in Newmarket to congratulate the store for winning Silver in the 2021 Foodland Ontario awards, touring through Newmarket and Aurora with Honorary. Cho the Minister of Seniors and Accessibility to announce three Seniors Community Grants that will support seniors programming, presenting congratulatory scrolls to Bonnie for opening her very own Tropical Breeze Caribbean Kitchen and to Omar for opening the Wayside Tavern in downtown Newmarket.

I got to welcome the Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce to my riding to announce the tender for the building of a new elementary school in Aurora. I hosted our annual pre-budget consultation along with Stephen Crawford the PA to the Ministry of Finance, MPP Michael Parsa, and MPP Daisy Wai where we got to hear from various leaders in our community on how we can ensure that Ontario is the best place to live, work, and raise a family. It was wonderful to attend the grand opening of Farm Boy in Aurora on January 19th. On January 22nd I had the pleasure of attending the Explore Islam Exhibition by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association. This was to educate and raise awareness about the true teachings of Islam. I am looking forward to attending numerous events and festivities in the community during the month of February as we celebrate Black History Month and Family Day.

On January 16th, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, MPP for Newmarket-Aurora and Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education announced that as part of Ontario's ongoing efforts to build and improve local schools, the province has provided the YRDSB with approval to award the tender for the new Aurora 2C Elementary School; which will be located at Hartwell Way and William Graham Drive in Aurora.

The Ontario government is providing $4,426,616 to help renew and rehabilitate local infrastructure in Newmarket. The funding is being delivered through the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) and is part of the government’s overall investment of $400 million in 2023. MPP Gallagher Murphy and Mayor Taylor met on December 13th to share this fantastic announcement.

On December 15th, the Neighbour Media team celebrated the 2022 Cover Features! We wanted to show our appreciation for these #goodneighbours and all of the support that they have shown us throughout 2022. Thank you to our hosts at Market Brewing, to A Million Mouthfuls Catering for the delicious spread and to Supermoon Cheesecakes for the tasty [Neighbour Media branded] dessert! We are looking forward to 2023 and the opportunity to highlight even more amazing people and organizations!

York Region Food Network is a charitable organization that strives for a food secure York Region where everyone’s right to food is met.

Our Vision: Food for health, Food for All

Our Mission: York Region Food Network connects and empowers people to access healthy food through education and advocacy.

Core values that guide our actions:

We Advocate - Food insecurity is not about food. It’s about not having enough money to access food. We support an income-based response to food insecurity so everybody has enough money in their pockets to access food.

We Collaborate - We build relationships and connect with residents, community organizations, farms and businesses to strengthen the local food system and our communities.

We Educate - We lead kitchen and garden skills workshops, bringing community together around food, sharing our similarities and celebrating our differences.

We Care - We respond to the needs of the communities we serve, evaluating our work through an anti-oppressive lens, acknowledging land-based teachings and working towards a more inclusive York Region for all.

Our Programs

Good Food Box Kitchen Programs

Urban Agriculture

Community Breakfast

York Region Youth Food Committee Seed Library

2023 Events

Mother's Day Tea Box - May 14th and 15th

YRFN Poker Run - September 17th

Online Holiday Auction - November 20th - 27th