Wildfire Smoke and Your Health

I have a dream... that the Warkworth food bank, 7 Hills Community Pantry, would be stocked all summer with fresh produce grown from local gardens. And that the positive relationship between our community and its food bank would deepen.

This is not a pipedream. GrowA-Row is a people-helping-people movement growing around the world, one community at a time. It has one simple goal: “as part of your garden this year, plant and grow an extra row of your favourite veggies and donate the harvest to your local food bank”. A handful of seeds and a bit of space is all that’s needed. This can be done anywhere - in your front or backyard, in a mound or a space cut out of your lawn, in a community garden or in pots on your balcony.

Warkworth is a grateful community, one whose gratitude spills over into generosity time and again. It is also a community of avid gardeners who share seeds, plants, ideas, tips, stories, produce. Wouldn’t it be great if these two things came together to fill our food bank’s shelves with fresh, homegrown produce for those who need to draw from it?

How does this dream come true? Make a pledge – as a single, a family, a group or club - and then plant an extra row or a new garden space or container. When your produce is ready, you’ll bring it to a specified local drop-off for delivery to 7 Hills Community Pantry (by the way, we’ll need a ‘produce organizer’ volunteer for this). We’ll record your donations by weight each week and add our community’s totals to the larger national and international numbers. 7 Hills is suggesting that carrots, beets, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash and spinach are the preferred vegetables to grow. If you have an overabundance of other produce during the season, it will be welcome. There are other ways to participate! Farmers can donate manure or compost to our growers, seed suppliers can donate seeds, locals who start seedlings can share their extras, a master gardener can teach gardeners how to get started, a garden club can hold a contest for the biggest produce donation, a high school student can earn community hours creating a simple website where participants can sign up and log weights of donations, and participants can share garden pictures and ideas as well as stories from drop-offs to keep us all inspired.

We’ll have a harvest party at the end of the season to celebrate what we’ve accomplished together to help alleviate hunger in our community. And we’ll start to dream for next year…

It’s not too late to plant an extra row. Whether you are an avid gardener or a beginner, if you have the space and would like to join the movement, please contact me at marie@ starfieldsfarm.ca and I’ll sign you up and help get you started. Come along and make this dream come true…

By Domenic Carullo

Wildfires produce thick smoke which can lead to serious health issues. Smoke can carry hundreds or thousands of kilometres from the fire zone. There is no safe level of exposure to wildfire smoke. This means that it can damage your health at very low levels. Even if you’re not close to a fire, you can still be affected by the smoke.

Everyone is at risk from wildfire smoke but especially small children, pregnant people, elderly people, people with existing lung or heart conditions and people involved in outdoor work or sports. What you can do:

Visit Canada.ca to find out more about Wildfire smoke, air quality and your health and Protecting your indoor air from outdoor pollutants.

Download and share the Wildfire smoke 101 factsheets: Wildfire smoke and your health and Using an air purifier to filter wildfire smoke.

Learn how to use the air quality health index (AQHI) to check air quality conditions in your community.

Download the WeatherCAN app to get free notifications about weather events, extreme heat and special air quality statements.