By Youth,

For Youth

Urban Sustainability

Our Mission

In many ways, our world has changed.

With a global population of over seven billion people, and over half of them living in cities, we have to adopt a new way of living--integrating sustainability with cities.

Green Your City is a program that helps youth, elementary and high school students alike, to start up gardens at their schools. It does so by providing connections via our Mentorship Program to teachers or students seeking guidance and knowledge, and a community seed library. With partnership with Garden Works, Garden 101 workshops on gardening knowledge are also provided based on student request.

If you are:

a student/ teacher looking for mentorship
an organization hoping to support a worthwhile, environmental initiative
a gardener wanting to share your knowledge and help
simply interested in the idea

Please look through the site, and contact Catherina at greenyourcity@gmail.com if you have any questions!

Though the support of GYC extends to all schools in B.C, the concrete goal for the program this year is to help all Burnaby high schools to establish their own gardens.

Hello everyone :)

My name is Catherina, and I am a grade 12 student at Burnaby South Secondary. As the chair of the Environmental Council, I was lucky to have a strong team with a passion in food sustainability to build edible gardens throughout the school. I believe greening of schools shouldn't be a privilege, but a right of all youth in this new generation.

I believe that students. both elementary and high school alike, should be able to learn hands-on about their food systems, and foster a self-rliance that is key to healthy living. Gardening isn't just about food. It is about a way of life, about a future of urban sustainability. I founded Green Your City with this goal in mind, and it will continue to be the driving force behind this initiative.

Aside from sustainability, I am also avid about debating, writing, dancing. :)

Founder

Catherina Pan

Contact

Email: greenyourcity@gmail.com

*Please note that as I am not a gardening expert , I unfortunately do not have answers to most specific gardening questions. This email is intended for general inquiries into the GYC program, as well as for interested sponsors, mentors, and students to contact.

I have always been fascinated by sustainability. But it wasn't until after the success of the first edible gardens at Burnaby South (for which the credit is due to the team, as well as to our sponsor teachers), I knew I had found my passion for gardening.

I was lucky to have a strong team of friends, as well as knowledgeable mentors to make our gardens possible--but I believe that understanding our food system, and growing what we eat, should be a right, not a privilege. This is why I started the Green Your City: I hope that students, elementary and high school alike, can build their own gardens, and learn the importance of urban sustainability through hands-on work that connects them with nature.

There is another purpose to GYC: through the community seed library, I want to promote the planting of heirloom, organic seeds, which, due to their lack of GMO modification, lack commercial viability, and thus their production is being driven smaller by the year. I want to By giving schools such heirloom seeds and have mentors teach youth how to harvest the mature plants, we can continue a culture of sustainability as a community, from the ground up.

A few more words about Green Your City...