Welcome to the 14th edition of Neighbours helping Neighbours, a weekly newsletter from the neighbourhoods team, with a focus on good news stories, important community updates and an ever growing list of support resources.
We hope the content in these enewsletter has been helpful over the past three months. Beginning in July we will be shifting to bi-weekly distribution.
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Midtown Waterloo distance driveway party!
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Neighbours from Moore Avenue in Midtown Waterloo participated in a distanced driveway party on June 14. They enjoyed dinner outside in their own driveways with chalk art, conversation and delicious cupcakes from black entrepreneur
Cecelia Johnston, owner of Ce Food Experience.
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National Indigenous Peoples Day is June 21, 2020
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June is National Indigenous History Month. The Government of Canada invites all Canadians to celebrate the unique heritage, diverse cultures and outstanding contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples by reading a digital copy of one the books from the
#IndigenousReads reading list
or by exploring a virtual exhibit at your favourite museum.
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Waterloo Fire Rescue on Google Classroom!
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Looking for educational and fun activities for your children while they are at home? Sign up for the Waterloo Fire Rescue's Fire & Life Safety Public Education Google Classroom. Code: ckoh3rf
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June 22-28 is National Pollinator Week
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Over 75% of all flowering plants on earth need pollinators to produce their seeds. Our best-known pollinator may be the honeybee—but did you know that there are over 900 species of bees in Canada? Other pollinators include butterflies, moths, wasps, flies, beetles and hummingbirds.
Learn some great tips about our native pollinators through Bee City Canada. Take the
Pollinator Pledge
below to show your support of native pollinators and creating pollinator habitat in Waterloo! Lets make our mark on the map!
Get involved
with the City’s Pollinator Working Group community stewardship activities or as a Working Group member!
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This invasive plant could be growing in your backyard
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If you’ve ever hiked beside a body of water, you may have spotted
Giant hogweed
, an invasive non-native perennial that grows to an enormous size and produces large umbrella-shaped clusters of white flowers. Easily mistaken for Cow or Wild parsnip, Angelica, Queen Anne’s Lace or even elderberry bushes, its distinguishing features are its reddish-purple blotched stems with prickly-bristles. Leaves are spiked with a jagged appearance and it flowers mid-June to August.
The City of Waterloo manages giant hogweed on municipal lands. To report Giant Hogweed in a City of Waterloo park, send a photo (close up), details and its location on a map to
environment@waterloo.ca
.
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Rainbow Story Festival June 22 to 30
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Let's celebrate PRIDE! Waterloo Public Library is proud to present, in partnership with the City of Waterloo and the LGBTQ2S+ community, the Rainbow Story Festival. From June 22 to 30, Waterloo City Councillors will be reading PRIDE-themed children’s picture books. After each storytime, we'll be making a craft too.
Registration is required for each program. Registrants will receive a link to join the fun 24 hours before the program.
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Check out the KW Urban Harvester
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KW Urban Harvester
is issuing this challenge to Kitchener-Waterloo through their Grow-a-Row program this growing season: to see if together we can grow 10,000 pounds of produce so as to make fresh healthy food more available to the community!
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At home gardening tips from the Waterloo Horticultural Society
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Nothing says summer like a fresh tomato sandwich! Growing your own tomatoes is easy and satisfying. Tomatoes are a warm season crop, requiring 6-8 hours of full sun a day but preferring 8-10 hours. They like weed free soil, well drained and high in organic matter.
Since vegetable plants are 75-90% water, they require 2.5 cm of water per week. If required, it is best to water in the morning and long soaking watering is preferable to frequent short watering. There are two types of tomato plants. Determinate which are compact plants that grow, set fruit and then decline. Indeterminate varieties will continue growing until frost kills them. You may grow your tomatoes in a garden bed, raised bed/garden box or container.
You will save room and decrease the need to prune your plants if you stake, trellis or cage your plants. Tomato cages can be purchased inexpensively and can be used year to year. It is best to put the cage on while the plant is small. Ripe tomatoes may be eaten fresh or preserved. Check recipes for small batch preserves and you can save your excess tomatoes as they become available and enjoy them throughout the winter.
Stay tuned for the at home gardening tips in next week's edition!
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Waterloo Region Seniors Continue to Contribute to and Enrich our Community
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June is Seniors’ Month in Ontario. The four Age Friendly Committees of Waterloo Region have joined together to highlight the contributions and community involvement of several older adults from the Region in The Celebration Interview Project.
Working with Digital Legacy Productions, The Celebration Interview Project features seven in-depth interviews with members of the older adult community in Waterloo Region, and are available now for readers to enjoy at the
Legacy Storytelling website
.
The individual stories reflect these older adults’ commitment to and involvement in the community, the skills and talents that they bring to the work that they do, and the energy and enthusiasm that sustains them and invigorates their volunteer activities.
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Coordinated COVID-19 Response Newsletter - June 12, 2020
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These weekly newsletters keep everyone informed about
the coordinated response to the evolving COVID-19 situation. The Region, area municipalities and local community partners are meeting regularly to make sure pandemic response efforts
are coordinated and aligned.
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Stay tuned for the next edition of Waterloo Neighbourhoods.
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Sign up
for updates about arts and culture, recreation and active living, neighbourhood happenings, cycling and other city news and stories.
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Waterloo Neighbourhoods is published throughout the year to keep residents informed about the good things happening in neighbourhoods across Waterloo. If you have any questions or comments, please call 519-747-8515 or email
communications@waterloo.ca
. If you’re reading Waterloo Neighbourhoods as a non-subscriber, visit our subscription page to
sign up
for future editions.
The City of Waterloo is committed to providing accessible formats and communications support for persons with disabilities. If another format would work better for you, please let us know by calling 519-747-8515 or by emailing us at
communications@waterloo.ca
.
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