Receive up to $500 for a Community Grant Through Burlington's Love My Neighbourhood Program

*Please see below a news release issued by the City of Burlington.Burlington, Ont. — April 5, 2022 — The City of Burlington’s Love My Neighbourhood grant program is back. Residents or community groups can now apply for up to $500 to create a community event that promotes connections, strengthens relationships and builds support systems for neighbourhoods.Community members can plan a one-time or weekly event. The events must be free and inclusive to the entire community within the specified area.The Love My Neighbourhood program will also work with the applicants for road closure permits, park permits, indoor facility rentals and insurance.To apply for a grant and to learn about what is eligible for funding, go to burlington.ca/neighbourhood. Applications are open now.

"Now more than ever, we need to build our sense of community and connections with our neighbours. This program is designed to help remove some barriers and build stronger connections among neighbours and communities by putting people together and having fun." -- Chris Glenn, Director of Recreation, Community & Culture, City of Burlington

Links and Resources:

• burlington.ca/neighbourhood

PAST EVENTS HELD THROUGH LOVE MY NEIGHBOURHOOD PROGRAM:Boothman Weekly Play Street

• • Closed the street once a week for 6 weeks to allow children to play safely on the road and learn the sport of pickleball
  • QUOTE FROM THE COMMUNITY: “Every week children would flood Boothman from all the surrounding street and spend 2 hours running free. It was the most magical thing to watch all these children creating games, organizing themselves and including everyone. The bigger children helped look after the little ones and everyone had a blast. Everyone also played a lot of pickle ball. All the children loved having a game to play against and practice with the parents. Now a few children run around the neighbourhood saying the pickle ball is their favourite sport, when at week one they didn't even know what it was. A few neighbours were extremely helpful setting up and cleaning up the barriers each week. It was amazing how much everyone, children and adults, looked forward to Thursday nights!”

 Halloween Street Party

• • Closed the road to have a halloween themed street party called “Scare Street.”
  • QUOTE FROM THE COMMUNITY: “It was so nice to be able to bring everyone in our neighborhood together and see all the happiness on everyones faces. It was also incredible to see the support for our food drive (we managed to collect 640lbs of food for the Burlington Food Bank!). Multiple families on our street helped out with planning and delivering our event, and everyone brought something unique to the table. Networking amongst our community also played a massive part with many local businesses donating decorations, candy etc.”

Spruce Street BBQ- Get To Know Your Neighbours

• • Closed the Road to have a bbq and incorporated inflatables
  • QUOTE FROM THE COMMUNITY: “A very large purpose to me organizing this event has been to connect neighbours. In particular with the assisted housing community adjacent to Spruce Ave, I am a strong promoter of connecting the community with nearby neighbours. Having an opportunity for the kids, teens to interact and play on the street is a fantastic way to promote community connectivity. We had many people from adjacent community and streets come by and interact. Kids loved riding their bikes, scooters on the street, bouncing balls, skip ropes or just simply decorating the street with chalk.”

And some other examples:

• Music in the Streets – Alton Village residents walked around neighbourhood and able to enjoy music at different driveways
• Neighbourhood Nature Play Group – Pineland Park
• Crafting for Community Wellness - Aldershot
• Neighbourhood Art Walk (Elizabeth Gardens)
• Fitness in neighbourhood park for neighbors to get active together
• Holiday festivities – Halloween spooky party, Frosty Village
• Little Libraries and people changing focus for seed exchange, puzzle exchange
• Neighbourhood Movie Nights
• Pickleball Street Play – families playing together

--*Posted by John Bkila, Mayor's Media and Digital Communications Specialist