Glebe Report

Pascale Arpin, an artist and freelance creative, reveals to passers-by on Bank Street the intricate work involved in creating what will become a stunning hand-lettered gold-leaf sign for a new restaurant, Gia Cantina.

With the world turned on its head, one of the notable changes for our family was the loss of almost all of our children’s organized sporting activities. Now, after months on hold, children’s indoor sports are slowly rolling back.

BottleWorks and the Glebe Community Association (GCA) are teaming up to give people from our community and neighbouring ones the chance to help young people get valuable on-the-job experience. And it’s as easy as delivering your dust-collecting, space-usurping empty bottles and cans to a handy pop-up location at Kunstadt Sports on Bank Street.

As an advocate of heritage conservation, I am appalled to see Ottawa’s much-loved mature and historic communities, such as the Glebe and Old Ottawa South, being severely blighted by urban renewal of an especially vulgar kind.

Consider the small but disproportionately polluting two-stroke leaf blowers and other gas-powered lawn-maintenance machines. Many people are unaware of the high level of pollution and emissions produced by the average gas-powered leaf blower.

While the last six months have been pandemic crisis mode across Ottawa, city staff and community activists have continued work on fulfilling our climate change commitments.

In this column, the Glebe Community Association’s (GCA) Zero Waste Committee will feature – and commend – residents’ practices in waste reduction. This issue, we’ve caught up with Catherine Johns, a Glebe resident, to discover the creative ways she has found to reduce her waste footprint.

On June 30, GNAG marked it 45th year of operation. Our commitment to the community continues to hold strong despite all the challenges we have faced due to COVID-19. I am proud to highlight GNAG’s many accomplishments from the past year.

As I take on the role of president, I am grateful to Sarah for her dedicated leadership over the past two years. I am looking forward to working with the great team on the incoming GCA board as we continue to advocate for a liveable, sustainable and diverse community.

Living in Canada’s Arctic has been the adventure of a lifetime for me. Growing up in southern Africa, I never imagined I would see a polar bear in its natural habitat. I never imagined I would see the northern lights but now I have, and I continue to marvel at their beauty.

Many of you may not be looking forward to the next few months, worried about what a second wave of COVID-19 could do to the community. But there is a lot to be excited about this fall, from weekend Farmers’ Markets and a 15-week virtual music festival to a haunted attraction that promises to scare the living daylights out of you.

As I sit on my couch this summer and look out my window, these are my thoughts. I think about how I miss school, my friends and my teachers and how they would help me with my work, support me and play with me.

The pandemic has disrupted family life. Couples navigate working at home and caring for children who may be attending classes in person or learning online. Single parents face the pressure of balancing work demands with raising children. Parents struggle with reduced work hours and the threat of unemployment.

Cranberry beans, named for their striking cranberry-coloured markings, are also known as romano or borlotti beans. Originally grown in Colombia and particularly popular in Italian cuisine, cranberry beans are good in soups, stews, vegetarian chowders and salads.

This month, reviewer Paul Green writes about The Tobacconist, a 2020 Austrian film that sets a coming-of-age story against a backdrop of perilous times in Vienna in 1938 (German with English sub-titles). Lois Siegel gives us insights into the making of her 1995 National Film Board documentary, Baseball Girls.

As your child starts school, learning French can feel daunting if it’s not spoken regularly at home. Your child may be more resistant to learning French because school itself is so overwhelming, especially in 2020. But learning is much easier if it feels like fun! The library has plenty of fun resources available to help support and encourage your child’s language learning.

Glebe Cooperative Nursery School (GCNS) was excited to reopen its doors to 25 new and returning students on September 1. After closing in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the teachers and students got back together again for the first time to experience the joys of learning in a fun, hands-on environment.

On October 2, Good Morning Creative Arts and Preschool (GMCAPS) opened its doors again after the pandemic shutdown, though with reduced programming. GMCAPS has been a wonderful resource for Glebe children and their families since 1981.

Kerry Kaiser, the long-time, much-loved coordinator of the Centretown Emergency Food Centre is stepping down from her position at the end of this year. Kerry will leave the food centre with an impressive list of accomplishments.

After months of exercising in the isolation of their own homes via Zoom, several Abbotsford members eagerly met up at Lansdowne Park to work out in the bright, safe expanse of the Horticulture Building with legendary exercise instructor, Joseph Cull.

The bilingual Ottawa Children’s Storytelling Festival/Festival du conte pour enfants d’Ottawa returns for its 26th year from November 16 to 21 with an online edition that brings together dynamic live presentations and pre-recorded stories that can be accessed on demand.

This is somewhat of a sad story. I’ve kept silent for many months, but I decided it is time to come out and make my story known. You see, I live on Glen Avenue close to Bank Street. My only company is my shadow – we are stuck to each other.

I no longer remember all the stories that I told my brother when we were growing up, but I can still recall the sense of wonder and magic that only children can invent and believe in. I wish I had written down those wondrous stories and woven them into a patchwork of golden tales.