Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/591861
Greenest City Community Grants We depend on bees for a lot more than honey. In fact, bees pollinate the plants that supply up to one-third of the food we eat, so it's important to both global food security and our local economy to protect their habitat. And yet, even the very act of beekeeping can be to our own benefit – a fact proven by Pollinators and People, a therapeutic beekeeping project funded by the Greenest City Community Grants program. In addition to creating forage and habitat for native pollinators, the project connects people from around the Lower Mainland on an equal playing field. "Executive chefs and homeowners work alongside [people who are] street-entrenched and unstably housed – both learn from the other," says Sarah Common, chief community officer at Hives for Humanity, which created the Pollinators and People project with a $28,800 grant. "e bees, the gardens and the pollinators – they connect the people." is is a key element of the Greenest City Community Grants program, a collaboration between Vancouver Foundation and the City of Vancouver. e projects it funds tend to build bridges and nurture partnerships that may not otherwise exist – in addi- tion to making the city more environmentally sustainable. e program was established to further Vancouver's ambi- tious goal of becoming the greenest city in the world – with the best air and water quality and good access to healthy, locally grown food – by 2020. But when the City of Vancouver intro- duced the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan in 2010, it knew it couldn't achieve it alone. "We needed every resident and non-profit organization to explore ways to pursue these goals," says Sadhu Johnston, acting city manager. e best way to do that was to partner with Vancouver Foundation, which had already established strong ties to existing Vancouver is on its way to being the world's greenest city by 2020 with the help of projects funded through Greenest City Community Grants By Corey Van't Haaff p a g e 2 0 I V a n c o u v e r F o u n d a t i o n l F a l l 2 0 1 5 Photo: iStock Going Green Going Green Going