Author: Serena Datta | BHSc Student at Queen’s | TNO Community Ambassador
Tucked behind apartment towers and hemmed in by arterial roads, the Leaside Community Garden isn’t obvious at first glance. But peer past the chain-link fence, and you’ll see rows of raised beds bursting with organic tomatoes, okra, gourds, and leafy greens.
Built and maintained by volunteers and staff from TNO – The Neighbourhood Organization, the garden is a hyper-local response to a national crisis: food insecurity in congested urban areas.
In Canada’s most urbanized environments, food is often framed in two dominant ways; as a product to be moved along a supply chain, or as a vessel for calories and nutrients. But for communities navigating poverty, displacement, and cultural loss, these narrow views miss the deeper role food plays in shaping life itself.
Urban planning continues to treat food access as a peripheral issue rather than essential infrastructure. Unlike roads or housing, food insecurity in cities is often siloed as an issue of affordability or access. In reality, food insecurity is a systemic failure tied to income inequality, racialized exclusion, and the erosion of local food autonomy.
Low-income households pay the highest price. They are pushed toward cheap, calorie-dense food with little nutritional or cultural value. They pay for this system twice: first by being unable to afford high-quality, fresh food, and again through the long-term health impacts of chronic undernourishment.
Gardens like Leaside view food through a third lens. One that sees food as cultural expression, conviviality, and embeds food directly into the fabric of community life.
As the late Dr. Wayne Roberts, longtime manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council, wrote, food contributes to the “personal, psychological, cultural, spiritual, social, environmental and economic development of people, and the mooring of people in their time and place.”.¹
Ishrat Jahan: Community Leader Spotlight
Ishrat Jahan grew up in Noakhali, Bangladesh, where food was inseparable from family, culture, and care. Even in the most crowded corners of the city, gardens flourished on rooftops, in alleyways, tucked along canal banks.
“Food wasn’t just something you bought,” she says. “You often grew it, you shared it. And that was just part of life.”
That culture of abundance and reciprocity in Noakhali, shaped how she came to understand land, community, and self-reliance—values that continue to guide her work when she immigrated to Toronto.
Jahan began her work with TNO in 2020 as a community ambassador supporting mobile COVID-19 testing, vaccination clinics, and public outreach. Today, as a Community Garden Coordinator and Outreach Worker, she leads food access initiatives, manages the Leaside Garden, coordinates the TNO Community Ambassador team, and promotes TNO programs at local events across the city.
She knows firsthand how disorienting the urban landscape can feel, especially for newcomers navigating the loss of communal routines and the feeling of disconnect from their ancestral land.
“We miss the vegetables from home,” she says. “Bitter melon, bottle gourd, lal shak [red amaranth].”
Neighbourhoods like Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park are among the most densely built in the city. As access to food and land is becoming increasingly stratified, many residents living in high-rises face rising grocery costs and limited options for fresh, affordable produce.
Growing Where You Are
For Jahan, the garden is about more than vegetables.
“When you grow your own food—even just a small pot of herbs—it shifts something,” she says. “You’re not just consuming. You’re creating. That feeling of capability builds a sense of agency”.
With sixteen plots divided amongst residents and community groups, the garden operates as a shared space shaped by many hands.
It welcomes participants from diverse backgrounds, including children with special needs from the Thorncliffe Park Autism Support Network (TPASN) and kids from the TNO Summer Camp. These visits offer opportunities for sensory engagement and exploration. Nurturing a plant from seed to harvest fosters focus, self-esteem, and a grounded sense of accomplishment.
The impact of growing food isn’t limited to community plots.
For those living in apartments, container gardening offers a way to reclaim some independence and localize food systems. Jahan offers a few basic tips for anyone working with limited balcony space.
- Choosing the Right Container: Look for pots with drainage holes, or repurpose buckets and storage bins. Add a layer of stones at the bottom to prevent root rot.
- Know your sun: South-facing balconies are ideal for full-sun crops like tomatoes and chillies. Leafy greens, such as basil, do well even in partial shade.
- Water Wisely: Container soil dries out faster than in-ground beds, especially during heatwaves.
- Grow vertical: Balcony rails can be used as makeshift trellises for vining cucumbers and pole beans.
- Kitchen Hacks: Crushed eggshells and used coffee grounds make excellent organic fertilizer.
- Stay Connected: Look out for TNO’s seed giveaways and eco-programs on Instagram
Beyond the Garden: A New Food Model
All of what’s harvested at Leaside is donated directly to the TNO’s Food Collaborative, a program reshaping how food assistance looks and feels.
Residents walk into a space designed to mirror a grocery store, with open shelves, fresh produce, dairy, halal meats, and culturally familiar staples such as lentils and plantains.
“We don’t pre-pack boxes for clients. People choose what they need, like any other shopper. I think that choice matters,” explains Jahan. “It restores a basic dignity that’s often stripped away by traditional food bank models. Needing help doesn’t mean losing autonomy.”
The Food Collaborative currently serves around 1,750 clients—more than half are newcomers. TNO’s efforts are supported by The Daily Bread Food Bank, which designated TNO as an anchor agency, as well as by donors and volunteers who run local food drives and contribute in-kind support. But at its roots, the program remains deeply community-driven.
Food For Thought
This people-centred model is what guides much of TNO’s food work, including its Food Collaborative and urban garden initiatives. It’s reshaping the urban food map. When food is rooted in place and people, it becomes a form of sovereignty.
Because in the end, it’s not just what we grow—it’s how we grow together.
Want to support community-led food access?
Click here to learn how to volunteer at the Leaside Community Garden or donate food to The Neighbourhood Organization’s Food Collaborative at 45 Overlea Blvd.
References
1. Roberts W. Toward city- and people-centered food policy. SpringerLink. January 1, 1970. Accessed June 9, 2025. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-32076-7_26.
