Create A Project

Donate

April 30, 2024
by Jen Teixeira

Newsletter: April 2024

Newsletter: April 2024

April 30, 2024 –

A Message from our President

Burkhard is away celebrating his great-aunt’s 100th birthday in Germany. He’ll be back next month.

Celebrating Youth Climate Action

Many congratulations to St James Town Climate Action Crew for winning first place in the second annual Canadian Youth Climate Action Award, held in partnership with Pivot Green. This Toronto-based, intergenerational group helps low-income, racialized residents living in high rise apartments prepare for extreme weather events. St James Town Climate Action Crew is one of eight award winners from across the country.

“We were so impressed with the quality and creativity displayed in the award submissions we received this year,” said Heather Wilson, one of the judges and a founding member of Pivot Green. “These projects and the young people involved with them demonstrate true leadership on ways to cope with the climate crisis. We feel privileged to be able to support their work and celebrate their achievements.”

You can read more about the Canadian Youth Climate Action Award and this year’s award winners here. Congratulations to all the 2024 recipients for their excellent work and a sincere thank you to all of the donors and volunteers who make this award possible!

Welcome, Aneesa!

We are pleased to welcome Aneesa Piracha as Director of Technology Strategy. Aneesa has a background in technology consulting at IBM and is an advocate for using technology for positive social impact. She is already hard at work driving our digital transformation and will provide technology support for Small Change Fund and our partners.

Aneesa is currently pursuing a Masters in International Development and is passionate about driving change in a sustainable, human centered and decolonial way. Away from the computer screen, Aneesa is a potter who does both wheel-throwing and hand-building, as well as a yoga enthusiast. Another fun fact about Aneesa: she started learning to fly a helicopter before driving a car!


The Internet’s Highest Honour*

We were thrilled to be nominated for a Webby Award in the Video – Sustainability & Environment category. Our comedy climate change series Hot Globe is all about reaching new and different audiences and the Webbys are one of the biggest internet platforms out there! Thank you to everyone who voted for us throughout the campaign – it was a tight race! Keep up with Hot Globe at hotglobe.ca.

* As described by the New York Times.

Bringing Nature to the Classroom

Through our project with Northwest Wildlife Preservation Society, we support nature programming for youth from socially and economically disadvantaged communities in British Columbia and parts of Alberta. The most recent workshop took place at John Norquay Elementary School in Vancouver where first grade students learned about the winter adaptations of local species. You can help us bring this programming to more youth by donating to Nature Walks and Workshops.

New Projects

While we are not currently accepting new projects, we do have some new crowdfunding pages to introduce!

Small News Bites

  • The fight to save critical habitat at Ontario Place from development continues. A recent ruling by Ontario Divisional Court Justice Nancy Backhouse denied the Ontario government’s bid to shut down our judicial review application with partners Ontario Place for All. This victory was only possible through the generous support of our donors!
  • 2023 was a big year for our youth transit program Get on the Bus! You can catch up on our exciting inaugural year through our Update Bulletin.

We hope everyone had a fabulous Earth Day and is enjoying the spring weather!

Sincerely,

The Small Change Fund Team

P.S. Your donation directly to Small Change Fund allows us to keep improving services and supports to help more grassroots projects succeed nationwide. Thank you for helping make change!