ACTA participates in Tourism Cares for Toronto
ACTA sponsored a wonderful team that worked with the Highway of Heroes Tribute at Sunnybrook Health Center. The entire team at Sunnybrook worked incredibly hard to plant 250 trees at a pace that blew the Sunnybrook grounds keeping staff away. While the trees are an amazing lasting tribute to those who served Canada, the biggest impact ACTA made was taking the time to get to know the veterans. Seeing all of the volunteers talking with the residents of Sunnybrook was one of the most heartwarming moments of the entire event.
Tourism Cares focused on city tourism in 2017 in keeping with the UN World Tourism Organization’s recognition of city tourism as a critical force in sustainable development and livability. This is the last event in the TCOC series — and TC’s first in Canada—which began in Oakland, then continued in Detroit and Providence.
In Toronto, volunteers completed 4 valuable projects across the city:
They spent the day on the farm! Working with Black Creek Community Farm, volunteers planted 50 blue berry bushes, 5 service berry and harvested almost 500 lbs of carrots! Not only did the group put in a huge effort, having volunteers come from all around North America to the farm, helps to spread a message around food security and accessibility to apply to various organization, groups or individuals.
They helped make Toronto more accessible. A small but mighty group raised awareness and paint brushes to help the Stop Gap Foundation spread their message of creating more accessible spaces throughout Toronto. Volunteers painted 14 ramps, adorned with Stop Gap logos, and even delivered a ramp to a local business.
They honored fallen veterans of Canada by planting 250 trees with the Highway of Heroes Tribute. The highlight of the day - spending time with veterans of World War II and the Korean War.
They spruced up community space. In St James Town, the most densely populated neighborhood in North America, volunteers pulled, planted and assembled benches to make community spaces among the high rise buildings shine a bit brighter.
At the end of the day, more than $40,000 was donated in volunteer and grant funding to the city of Toronto.
