MPL Awarded Major Grant to Support ‘Be Inspired’ Healthy Communities Initiative

Milton Public Library is the proud recipient of $50K in funding from the Government of Canada’s Healthy Communities Initiative. Partnering with local Indigenous organisation Grandmother’s Voice, MPL plans to bring new life to Beaty Branch and inspire a more inclusive, inviting, and vibrant community space, both indoors and out that will include an Indigenous garden, supportive programs, and enhanced collections.

Implemented by Community Foundations of Canada, the Healthy Communities Initiative is a $31 million investment from the Government of Canada to transform public spaces to create safe ways for communities to access services, enjoy the outdoors and adapt to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

An Indigenous garden was planted in spring 2022 at Beaty Branch, with a view to centre Indigenous ways of knowing about the land, plants, and medicines. These teachings will be supported by a year of Indigenous-centered programming, featuring voices of Indigenous authors, artists, Elders, and residential school survivors, presented through consultation with Grandmother’s Voice and leaders from the Indigenous community in and around Halton.

Grandmother’s Voice is a body of unified Indigenous people creating a safe, secure community that advances knowledge, education, and understanding of Indigenous cultures and practices. This group of Elders and Knowledge keepers were recently awarded with the Suzuki Foundation Future Ground Grand Prize for their Indigenous Seeds of Hope: Planting Our Future Healing Garden and Wellness Centre in Milton. We look forward to building a healthier community. 

Miinikaan (‘the SEED’ in Ojibwe) offers consulting landscape design and garden installation. They grow Indigenous gardens that feed people and pollinators, and beautify the urban landscape.

Miinikaan gardens invite curiosity and demonstrate Indigenous Agroecology teachings. They cultivate relationships between people and plants, by teaching and learning about the foods, medicines and habitats. Their designs and gardening techniques improve the local ecology. The plant combinations in their gardens are tolerant of extreme weather and thrive in unlikely urban spaces.