In addition to feeding people with locally-grown food, Will’s farm also provided employment, offers training and education on polyculture, and functions as an example of the efficacy and success of urban farming.

Allen’s concern is simple: how do we address the problem of “food deserts” in urban societies? His farms, operated through his company Growing Power, are all located in food deserts -places where grocery stores aren’t easily accessible and, in many cases, where access to transportation is uncommon. Will’s solution is to produce food in cities year-round and to use the farms as a way to grow communities.

The farms focus on greenhouses and composting, and have grown to include aquaponics which allows them to produce fish such as tilapia, as well as vegetables and bedding plants which are used to beautify the surrounding community.

Most communities grow about 1% of their food locally – imagine if we transformed that to 10%.

Allen’s farms are built on sustainability: he buys mouldy hay from farmers and spoiled fruit from grocery stores, adds brewery waste and wood chips and composts the results into soil. He also relies heavily on worms, whom he uses not only as organic fertilizer, but also as a way to get kids involved with growing. He says:

“There’s so many bugs in a worm bin, you’re going to find something that you like.”

The farm can produce products at $5 a square foot, $200,000 an acre. Growing high revenue products like sprouts, it can be as high as $1.2 million an acre. This means that not only can urban gardening benefit the local community in terms of involvement, pride and opportunities to learn, but it can generate real income as well.

Allen also makes a concerted effort to reach out to youth within the community, using farming to teach basic skills such as reading and writing, combined with arts and crafts projects which allow the children to exercise their creative abilities. He also works with autistic children, immigrant children, and senior citizens, all of whom benefit from being able to help out on the farms. By providing summer jobs, the farms have helped fight drug-dealing, gang involvement, and transforming vacant lots into gardens has had an overall positive effect on the surrounding communities.

With all of these net positive effects in mind, from growing local food, to giving back to our communities, to helping and teaching others it’s worth asking ourselves:

What if we could redefine farming?

In modern society it’s very easy to dismiss the influence of cinema as having a positive influence in our lives. Giant blockbuster hits, which saturate the market in every possible way from McDonalds cups to t-shirts and backpacks, have changed what it means to produce a film, and the role that those films play in our lives.

However, it wasn’t always that way.

Today marks the birthday of the late Fred Astaire, a man whose passion for music and dance transformed an industry and charmed the world.

Another film dance legend, Gene Kelly, once said that “the history of dance on film begins with Astaire”, and he isn’t alone in this view. Other classical dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson, and Rudolf Nureyev have all referenced his influence and his importance to the film industry.

By channelling what he loved to do and by sharing his passion with others, Fred Astaire was able to bring joy into people’s lives, and to inspire them towards positive change.

He also was a wonderfully wise person:

How can you use something that you love to bring joy to others?

This past Tuesday a handful of fabulous Winnipeg bloggers got together at Vine HQ for an evening of learning, discussion, drinks and snacks.

Jackie, Joseph and I were thrilled to be able to connect with some awesome like-minded people and to be able to participate and facilitate some really interesting and engaging discussions.

Some topics discussed were:

• How to find your “voice”: what does it mean? How can you keep it consistent?
• Which are some of the best platforms to use to share your blog with an audience?
• What is okay to blog publicly, and what isn’t?
• Should you host your own domain, or use a blogging platform?
• How can we bring blogging to a business?
• Among many others!

The group exists to provide an opportunity for members to come together once a month to share tips and tricks to being a better blogger -if that means SEO optimization, content creation, monetizing a blog or whatever else our members want to discuss, in addition to hanging and connecting with cool local bloggers.

In the future we’ll also be including sponsors, challenges, and other incentives to connect our members with companies and individuals looking for super-talented people to help spread the word about their brand or idea.

Our goal is to create a fun, collaborative environment for local bloggers.

Do you have some advice you’d be willing to come and present to the group?
Do you have a question that you would like us to tackle at our next meeting?
Do you have a cool brand or incentive idea that the group can help you with?

Sign up here to be a part of our next meetup!

Rooftop agriculture is when a “green space” sometimes involving trees, shrubs, bushes, or vegetable gardens are installed on the roof of an urban structure such as a civic building, offices, or apartment blocks and is usually done using hydroponics, aeroponics, or container gardens.

In fact, we’ve been growing plants on top of man-made structures since antiquity: Mesopotamians, Romans, the Egyptians and the Byzantines all practiced some form of above-ground gardening, many with advanced water wheels and irrigation for watering them.

Why are rooftop gardens a good thing?

Plants have the ability to reduce the overall heat absorption of the building, which in turn decreases their total energy consumption. Plant surfaces don’t rise more than 4–5 °C above the ambient and are sometimes cooler., this in turn, according to a study by the University of Cardiff, can cool the surrounding environments by between 3.6 degrees and 11.3 degrees celsius. In Canada, a study published by the National Research Council of Canada showed that differences between roofs with gardens and roofs without gardens:

“If widely adopted, rooftop gardens could reduce the urban heat island, which would decrease smog episodes, problems associated with heat stress and further lower energy consumption.”

We’ve already seen a local example with the Manitoba Hydro Place, which, among other amazing energy-efficient solutions, employs a green roof to help cool the building and make it more energy-efficient.

However, an article published in the Winnipeg Free Press in 2011 called “Green rooftop research lacking” cited a speech given by Shauna MacArthur of Friesen Tokar Architects at the Better Buildings Conference that although she knew of ten Winnipeg buildings including Oak Hammock Marsh who had rooftop gardens she found that:

Universities and technical colleges in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina and Saskatoon are all conducting ongoing studies into the best designs and plants for rooftop gardens… but she’s not aware of any studies being conducted in Manitoba.

What could it do for Winnipeg?

Recreation: Rooftop gardens provide respite from the concrete jungles that compose the downtowns of major cities. They allow residents to enjoy a green space and connect with nature without having to leave the city. Not to mention how beautiful gardens and shared outdoor spaces look compared to flat grey rooftops.

Businesses can easily use locally-grown produce:  An article from CTV Montreal published in November 2012 stated that since meals-on-wheels/restaurant Santropol Roulant installed a massive garden on top of its restaurant in Plateau Mont-Royal:For 17 years, the organization that has delivered hot meals to those in need.

For 17 years, the organization that has delivered hot meals to those in need. The addition of a rooftop garden has resulted in more local and organic produce going into those meals.

Winnipeg Harvest, as well as a few other local organizations have already implemented some of these steps, but it would be great to see more local businesses coming together to help keep all Winnipeggers fed with safe, chemical-free, locally-grown produce.

Empowering people to grow their own food: If more downtown residences could grow their own fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs on their rooftops, it would decrease their reliance on unhealthy processed or imported foods and encourage healthier lifestyles with a focus on eating what they’ve grown in their own backyards (or in this instance, on their own rooftops).

Civic Pride:Making our downtown beautiful will make more people want to spend time there. Plain and simple.

Take the following set of pictures as an example; don’t they look like the kinds of places you would want to live?

That’s me, about to award Jackie with her first of three for the evening.

At Vine, we like to say that we have the greatest team on the planet.

Last night we proved it.

It was Red River College’s 10th annual Creative Communications Media Awards gala, hosted at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. I was lucky enough to be asked to present some of the awards. I thought it would be a great opportunity to see some of the up and coming talent (ie: scope out possible new additions to our team) and see what these creative young minds are up to. They blew me away.

The talent out of this group was astounding. We saw many of the names & faces we recognize from the #CreComm hashtag on Twitter, and our good friend Colin Enquist – who won a spot on our Habitat For Humanity Foot Rally team - even won an award for having the best blog. (Naturally, this blog was about beer.)

But I digress. It’s time to brag.

Jackie Doming, we are so proud of you.

Our very own purpose-driven marketer and creative communications ninja, Jackie Doming was nominated for several awards. And, with the grace of a queen, won several awards.

We were so excited to watch as Jackie went to the stage 3 different times to receive her awards. They included:

• 2nd Year Single-Page Layout and Design of the Year
• IPP Social Media Branding of the Year
• 2nd Year Good Gal of the Year

So, not only does she have all of the tactical skills to make stuff happen, she also has the heart of someone who truly cares about other people.

“Hi, I’m Jackie. I’ve won so many awards, I’ve run out of things to say by now.”

What an impressive showing.

Jackie, we couldn’t be more proud of you, and so happy to have you on our team.

Congratulations!

(If you’re a CreComm student and are interested in working with awesome people like Jackie this summer, we have an internship available!)

His words serve as powerful motivation for anyone who dares something great, but meets with temporary defeat:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

If you’ve found your mission, your purpose, your dream… keep fighting to make it a reality. There may be critics, but they’re just there to test your determination.

Keep going.

It’s not the critic that counts…

A few weeks ago the Vine team (minus me, I was sick) attended the BOLD Breakfast at The Winnipeg Free Press News Café. One of the things discussed at the breakfast that had Jackie and Joseph buzzing was a challenge issued by Brian Scharfstein to list 10 positive facts about Winnipeg.

With spring feeling like it’s still a far-off dream, everyone around me seems to be asking themselves “why the heck do I live here?!” , and it feels like the perfect opportunity to respond to Brian’s challenge and share all of the awesome reasons why I call Winnipeg home (weather be damned!)

1. Our Independent Businesses

I think this goes without saying; our small businesses are the heart and soul of this city and really make it into the unique and exciting place that it is. We’ve got amazing vintage shops like Rhymes with Orange, The Ruby Slipper, and Hooper’s Bazaar; delicious high-end coffee places like Parlour Coffee in the Exchange District and, more recently, Thom Bargen in West Broadway; retail stores like Hanford Drewitt, Out of the Blue, Para Mix, ordnry, and Jose Markham; as well as record shops, toy stores, bookstores, flea markets, and jewellery stores too plentiful to name here.

If you want something, guaranteed you can get it without having to go to a big box store.

2. Our Locally-Owned Restaurants

In case you didn’t know, Winnipeg has more restaurants per capita than any other city in North America which sounds like a staggering statistic but is easy to believe once you start thinking about it. I mean, the Ellice strip is brimming with amazing ethnic food choices -KG Saigon, Nhu Quynh, Shawarma Khan, and Pho Kim Tuong Restaurant, to name a few, and we’re home to amazing higher-end restaurants like Deer+Almond, The Tallest Poppy, Pizzeria Gusto, Fude, Segovia, 529 Wellington, Deseo, and Bistro 7 1/4… I think I’ve made my point, right? Needless to say, we’ve got some of the best options for eats around.

3. Our Neighbourhoods

One of the striking things about our core neighbourhoods are how diverse they manage to be, considering that Winnipeg has a pretty dense city centre. Every neighbourhood has something different to offer, from up-and-coming West Broadway’s cool hipster bars, to Osborne Village’s shops and restaurants (named Canada’s greatest neighbourhood, by the way), cool and chilled-out St. Boniface, the charm of the West End, and, of course, the gorgeous historic buildings in The Exchange District. Even non-central neighbourhoods like the North End, St. James and River Heights are brimming with rich and fascinating histories that make them all unique.

4. Our Landmarks

An unfortunate byproduct of living in Winnipeg, it seems, is that we tend to forget how beautiful our city truly is. Of course there’s the big-ticket examples: our badass-looking Legislative Building, the Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge, the Royal Canadian Mint, The St. Boniface Cathedral-Basilica, the Hotel Fort Garry and, of course The Forks. In addition, we’ve also got attractions such as the Corydon strip, Old Market Square, and The Burton Cummings Theatre that are easy to take for granted or overlook in our day-to-day lives, even though in reality we might spend a ton of time there.

5. Our Architecture

This feeds a bit off of the last topic, but in recent years I’ve started to really take notice of the wide variety of buildings that can be found in Winnipeg. Arguably the most notable are our terra-cotta heritage buildings, such as the Royal Bank Tower (once the highest point in the British Empire!), the Criterion Hotel, the former Great West Life Building, the North West Traveler’s Building, the Former Marlborough Hotel, to name a few. We also have an amazing collection of Brutalist architecture including the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Robson Hall at the University of Manitoba, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Taxation Centre, and many more.

For those interested, some cool PDF guides to Winnipeg architecture can be found here.

6. Our Outdoors

One of the best things about Winnipeg is how easy it is to get out of town for a while and enjoy Manitoba’s provincial parks. Anyone who has been to Grand Beach, Winnipeg Beach, or any of the other, more secluded beaches a short drive out of town can attest to the quality of our beaches: we’ve got some of the nicest sand in the world, the lakes are shallow enough that they’re swimmable for most of the summer, and there’s tons of camping in and around the area. But if you don’t feel like making the trek out of the city, we have a plethora of municipal parks such as Kildonan Park, Harbourview, Crescent Drive and Assiniboine Park where there are always events and activities to check out during the summer and are great for tobogganing, skating and cross-country skiing in the winter.

7. Our Festivals

This one goes without saying. We’re lucky enough to be the home not only of huge-scale and widely-recognized events like The Winnipeg Folk Festival and The Winnipeg Fringe Festival, but other events such as The Winnipeg Wine Festival, Le Féstival du Voyageur, JazzFest, Folklorama, Cyclovia, The Manitoba Electronic Music Exhibition, The Manito Ahbee Festival, Winnipeg Pride, and many more small-scale events catering to just about every topic under the sun.

8. Our Big Ticket Events

For a city with less than a million people, Winnipeg is bumping with stuff to do year-round. There are our festivals (more on that in a moment), but it’s staggering to think about the amount of social events that take place in our city: The Young Associates events, Nuit Blanche, Winnipeg Art Gallery Art & Soul gala, Yuri’s Night and the annual United Way GenNext events are just some of the larger-scale social events I can think of off the top of my head, but there are way more to be had. This is in addition to all of the live performances, art shows, poetry readings, movie screenings, book signings, burlesque shows, and other events that fill up the social calendar of any Winnipegger who doesn’t live under a rock.

To all those people who say “there’s nothing to do in Winnipeg” I say, you’re just not looking for stuff to do.

9. Our Creatives

There’s a very good article by Matt Schellenberg of Royal Canoe which discusses how Winnipeg’s awful winters and relatively isolated nature actually make us a great breeding ground for artists and musicians (probably we have to hide inside for half the year), and whether or not there’s any truth in that statement, it’s true that some seriously talented musicians, artists and creatives have called Winnipeg “home”. To mention a few: The Weakerthans, Imaginary Cities, The Watchmen, Fred Penner, Venetian Snares (musicians), Sarah Anne Johnson, Wanda Koop, Marcel Dzama, (artists), Guy Maddin, Astron 6, Adam Smoluk (film), as well as countless others. There really seems to be something in the water here that breeds creativity.

10. Our Growing Bike Culture

Maybe it’s the soaring cost of gas. Maybe it’s an attempt to be more ‘green’. Maybe it’s just all the damn hipsters. Whatever the reason, Winnipeg’s cyclist culture has exploded over the past few years. I first noticed this phenomenon two years ago while at Fringe, where I had to cycle around The Exchange in frustration because I couldn’t find a place to lock up my bike because they were all taken, and since then the trend has increased dramatically. Last year while I biked my (45min!) commute to work, I could easily lose count of over 30 cyclists each way -and that’s only in one part of the city! The explosion of cycling in this city is hands-down one of my favourite things about Winnipeg: it’s green, it’s good for our bodies, and cycling makes us happy. What’s not to love?

So there you have it, my (top ten) 10 positive facts about Winnipeg.

What are your favourite things about our great city?

Now what the heck do you do?!

If you’re anything like us when we were students, you’re probably applying at every office, car wash and Arby’s that will accept your resume trying to find summer work to pay down that scary-looking tuition bill.

You’re probably thinking that the likelihood that you’ll get any experience relevant to your field of study is essentially nonseistent.

Think again.

The Vine team is looking to bring on a super-cool summer intern!

We even promise that nobody will point a gun at you.

You

You’re a first-year Creative Communications student who has a flair for writing and content creation. You’re heavily involved in all forms of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you’ve got it all) and you already blog like a mofo.

The Job

We’re looking for some up-and-coming talent (that’s you) to join our crusade to make the world a better place. Working with a bunch of different non-profits, as well as some projects that actually have money, you’ll help generate content and otherwise be somewhat useful around the office. Working with us, you’ll get a whole summer’s worth of hands-on, practical, in-the-trenches experience in the world of marketing, that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. (Not only are a social enterprise, we’re a startup.) As an added bonus, you’ll also get to participate in any of the super-fun activities and campaign-related adventures we get to take. They often include beer.

You’ll be working right alongside our resident Queen of the Internet (me, Alyson Shane), former Cre-Comm Ninja Jackie Doming, and Mr. Fancypants Joseph Ranseth (He’s kind of a big deal) and basically your days will consist of writing a ton of hilarious, insightful and thought-provoking blog posts on a variety of topics, maybe making some eye-catching graphics of video to go along with it, if that’s your thing, as well as whatever random projects the other Vine team members might toss your way.

Keep in mind…

This is a (somewhat) unpaid internship, so you won’t be getting an hourly salary. Your “wages” will be paid in the hands-on experience that you’ll gain working for us that you’ll be able to bring back to school in the fall and use during your second year, as well as a reasonable stipend at the end of the summer.

So if you’re cool investing some time now, for a killer resume & tons of experience when you finish your program, then this could be the opportunity for you. (If you’re totally broke and need a paying job to eat, this might not be the perfect fit for you… or you’ll want to take an evening/weekend job in order to hang with us during the day.)

How to Apply

We know you’re still interested, so here’s what you need to do: write a blog post describing why you’d make the best summer intern ever. If you want to get really fancy and show off your skills, add a YouTube video or a flow chart about how awesome Vine is – or bacon, we love bacon (except for Joseph, he eats plants, mostly). Make sure to tweet the link to us and post about it on our Facebook page so we can find you.

Questions? Drop us a line via social media and we’ll do our best to clear ‘em up for you.

Good luck!

However, according to UNICEF, 783 million people do not have access to safe, clean drinking water, and 2.5 billion people live without proper sanitation.

Unfortunately for many developing countries, large-scale water purification processes and plants are expensive and are often not an option for smaller, rural communities. So, what if there was a relatively cheap and easy way for people in these types of situations to rid their water of harmful bacteria?

There is a way.

Known as solar disinfection, or SODIS for short, the method is almost cost-free and is now being used in many developing countries to make well and tap water safe for human consumption.

SODIS was developed in the 1980’s to inexpensively disinfect water used for oral rehydration solutions used to treat diarrhea. In 1991, the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (SANDEC, EAWAG) began to investigate and implement SODIS as a HWTS option, to prevent diarrhea in developing countries.[source]

The purification process looks like this:

- Filling one and a half or two-litre plastic bottles 3/4 full of clear water (or cloudy water that has been filtered through a layer of sand)
- Shaking the bottle vigorolously to ensure that the water is mixed with the air in the bottle
- Filling the rest of the bottle with water
- Placing the filled bottles on a metal or concrete surface (such as the roof of a house)
- Leaving the bottles for at least six hours or until hot to the touch
- Removing the bottles and allowing the water to cool for use

SODIS uses the sun’s ultraviolet rays to purify the water, killing harmful and disease-causing bacterial growth. In many cases, half of the bottles are painted black and then placed on the roof with the black side down. This acts like a miniature boiler, and works similar to how solar water heater collecting plates operate.

The SODIS method of disinfecting drinking water was discovered at The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in 1980, so we have to ask: if this technology has been available for so long, why isn’t SODIS a more widely-used method of water purification? Since many communities in developing countries are too poor to afford large-scale water purification projects, why aren’t organizations focusing on training communities to be self-sufficient in small-scale water purification methods?

What if poor communities in developing countries all knew that they could purify their own water using sunlight?

When you think about “Canada” what comes to mind?

For most Canadians and many of our international friends, scenes like rolling hillsides, huge forests, deep blue lakes, and mountains come to mind. Some of us might even think about beavers, caribou, or my personal favourite, the loon.

Our wilderness and the wildlife that inhabit it are a huge part of our national identity, and today I’d like to recognize a great Canadian conservationist, who played a crucial role in bringing attention to Canada’s wilderness through his books and films.

Grey Owl was one of the first and most powerfully outspoken supporters for the preservation of the wilderness and Aboriginal identity in Canada. Today marks the anniversary of his death in 1938.

During the time of his writings, in the 1920’s and 30’s, it was largely assumed that both the Canadian wilderness and Aboriginal culture and heritage would disappear. However, Grey Owl argued that in order for Canada to remain a unique and rich country, we must respect the real role of both the wilderness and Aboriginal culture play in our national identity.

“I want to arouse in the Canadian people a sense of responsibility they have for the North country and its inhabitants, humans and animal”

What is most striking about Grey Owl’s impact is that though he fought for the conservation of Canadian wilderness and Aboriginal cultural heritage, is that Grey Owl had no Aboriginal background whatsoever. In fact, he wasn’t even Canadian.

Born Archibald Belaney to an affluent family near Hastings, England, his fascination with Aboriginal culture eventually led him to leave his country and ingrained himself with Ojibwas living on Bear Island in Ontario. It was here that he began to identify as one of them and reject his British heritage. He took on the name “Grey Owl”, an adaptation of his nickname “little owl”, given to him because of his insatiable curiosity about Aboriginal culture and language.

It’s so wonderful to think that someone’s life was changed by what they found in this amazing, beautiful country of ours:

The North is what makes Canada unique among nations – “We have something here that no other country has” – it offers Canadians a dual existence: to walk city streets and paddle forest rivers

Though he initially worked as a trapper, after adopting a group of baby beavers whose mother he had caught for her pelt, Grey Owl began to make the transition from trapper to conservationist.

Grey Owl’s personal journey from growing up and living in colonized England and parts of Canada to learning from colonized peoples resulted in an important message which left a lasting impression on Canadian conservationism.

What motivates you to want to preserve this beautiful and unique country of ours?

At the present time countries having a heavy population are all in trouble, the accumulation within their borders seeking an outlet in any direction, and finding themselves surrounded by others in a like predicament are all dressed up and have nowhere to go. We, on the other hand, are very lucky, in that we have all kinds of places to go within our own boundaries.