WHO WE ARE
The GARDENS Lakeshore Pods Project was conceived in 2016 with a name as ambitious as its vision: The Green Artisan Retailers & Designers Environmental Networking Space (GARDENS). A mouthful, perhaps but the idea behind it was clear. Everyone in our community deserves access to locally grown, healthy, culturally acceptable produce and the knowledge to grow it.
What began in Ward 3 (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) with founding support from LAMP Community Health Centre and Humber Polytechnic's Centre for Social Innovation has grown into something entirely its own.
In 2026, The GARDENS and its Advisory Council (GAC) are incorporating as an independent registered non-profit still rooted in the same community, accountable to it directly.
Our work lives at the intersection of hyper-local food security, urban agriculture, and hands-on community education.
Through our pod network, expanding pollinator and sensory pathways, partnerships with Humber's Indigenous Education & Engagement team, Food Share Community Markets, and a growing circle of collaborative organizations, we are building an Urban Agricultural Research Framework for South & Central Etobicoke that is community-led, culturally grounded, and here to stay.
VISION
A South Etobicoke where urban agriculture is embedded in the fabric of the community. Where culturally appropriate, organically grown food is produced hyper-locally and reaches the people who need it. Where knowledge about growing, eating, and sustaining that system is passed on and built upon every season.
The GARDENS exists to address all three... building the programs, the partnerships, and the physical growing spaces that, in our own small way, make a more resilient local food system possible in South Etobicoke.
MISSION
To grow more than food.
We bring the citizens of South and Central Etobicoke together around something fundamental, the belief that a community which grows together, strengthens together. Through our garden pod network, urban agriculture education programs, Food Share Community Markets, and a growing community hub, we work to put food on tables, knowledge in hands, and connection at the heart of South and Central Etobicoke.
Food insecurity isn't only about hunger. It's about dignity, access, and resilience. So we tend to all of it — the soil and the people around it — building something that is community-rooted, forward-looking, and built to last.
OBJECTIVES
DONATION SYSTEM
The GAC also seeks to enhance the community with gathering, educational, and employment space that promotes:
-
partnerships within the community and perhaps beyond;
-
education opportunities as related to urban gardening, ecology, nutrition;
-
research, experimentation, and innovation in garden technologies, land reclamation, water conservation, clean energy that supports sustainability;
-
retail, and other employment possibilities; and
-
a working model for land and facility reclamation/redemption.
In 2015, The GARDENS partnered with Humber College and its Summer Intensive Studio Program. This interdisciplinary team of students researched and designed an urban farm and community hub model that would address our concerns about environmental and food security issues in South Etobicoke. They designed functional creative spaces that emphasized social, economic, and environmental considerations.
From Harvest to Fork
Every vegetable, herb, and harvest grown by The GARDENS stays in Ward 3.
Our primary distribution stream runs through Food Share Toronto's Community Markets — bringing fresh, organically grown produce directly into the hands of those who need it most, right here in South Etobicoke. When surplus harvests fall outside market schedules, we work with local community partners to make sure nothing goes to waste and no one goes without.
Follow us on social media for upcoming Community Market dates.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Humber College is located within the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. Known as Adoobiigok, the “Place of the Alders” in Michi Saagiig language, the region is uniquely situated along Humber River watershed, which historically provided an integral connection for Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples between the Ontario Lakeshore and the Lake Simcoe/Georgian Bay regions. Now home to people of numerous nations, Adoobiigok continues to provide a vital source of interconnection for all.