​Once again, we have had such a busy summer with Operation EcoPen that we haven’t had much time to share everything happening behind the scenes! Over the next few posts, we’re excited to shine a spotlight on some of the wonderful organizations we’ve had the privilege of supporting and to celebrate the incredible work they do in our community
We would like to celebrate the Indigenous Community and Healing Garden in Ajax a beautiful partnership between the Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation and the Town of Ajax Town of Ajax.
This special green space offers so much to hospital staff, patients, and the wider Ajax community. It is a place to pause, connect, and recharge, while also helping to nourish the community through the fresh food it produces
Operation EcoPen has been delighted to contribute a variety of seeds and seedlings to the garden and to help tend and nurture this meaningful space throughout the growing season. We are incredibly grateful to Vandermeer Nursery Vandermeer Nursery for their generous support of this initiative again this year. We are also very thankful for kind support from Project Green Healthcare, a national Canadian Federation of Medical Students CFMS | FEMC Heart and Environment Adaptive Response Taskforce CFMS_HEART initiative that provides funding for medical student-led projects advancing healthcare sustainability across Canada
It has been such a privilege to help this garden grow, and we are so honoured to be part of its continuing story

Thank you so much to every student, parent, educator, business, and community member who has dropped off used writing instruments to Operation EcoPen Your support reduces plastic waste and powers community-driven environmental action.
We’re very grateful to our long-time participants, such as University Health Network, Western University, the Township of Uxbridge, and schools across the GTA, for supporting this work year after year. Special thanks to Maggy Bell and Dr. Carlos DeSousa’s office for their ongoing, dedicated support!
All collected writing instruments are sent to @staplescanada and recycled into new products by @terracycleca ​

​We would like to send appreciation to another one of our wonderful community organizations: Feed The Need In Durham (FTND)!
FTND collects and distributes food to community food programs across Durham Region, fighting hunger and ensuring that thousands and thousands have access to nutritious meals
We have been so happy to put together 1143 lbs of food for FTND @ftndurham this past growing season. Our harvest included tomatoes kale winter squashcucumbers eggplant beans zucchinis and more!
Growing food in urban gardens is eco-friendly and a fun way to provide your family, neighbours, and community with hyper-local, healthy food
We are deeply grateful for everything Feed the Need in Durham does to keep our community fed and thriving

​Taking a moment to thank another inspiring community initiative: the Indigenous Community and Healing Garden in Ajax a beautiful partnership between the Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation @aphfnd and the Town of Ajax @townofajax
This green space is a true sanctuary for the staff, patients, and the community of Ajax. It nourishes both body and spirit, providing fresh food to the community while supporting mental well-being at the same time
It has been a pleasure for OE to enrich this garden with a variety of seeds and seedlings, including Indigenous species, for the 2025 growing season. We thank Vandermeer Nursery for their very generous support this endeavour
It has been such a privilege to tend to and nurture this healing space, and we are so grateful to be part of its ongoing story

​We’d like to take this moment to thank Ontario Tech University’s Windfields Farm for its inspiring sustainability leadership @ot_sustain
This historic site is more than farmland. It’s an open-air laboratory for sustainable agriculture and community innovation. Windfields Farm helps grow organic produce for Common Ground Foodshare, cultivates pollinator habitats (including native wildflower gardens and honeybee hives), and hosts events such as Campus Market
For the third year in a row, we’ve had the honour of supporting this work by contributing a variety of beautiful native pollinator species. These have included flat-topped white aster, sweet oxeye, giant sunflower, turtlehead, black-eyed Susan, showy tick trefoil, dense blazing star, hoary vervain, and green-headed coneflower
It has been a privilege to nurture this beautiful space, and we are grateful for everything Ontario Tech is doing to nurture local food systems, engage students, and strengthen our community

​We’ve been SO busy with Operation EcoPen projects this summer that our social media has been very quiet! Over the next few posts, we would like to share our gratitude for our amazing partners and highlight their incredible contributions to the community
Today, we would like to thank the team at Toronto Wildlife Centre (TWC) @torontowildlifecentre TWC rescues, rehabilitates, and provides medical care to wild animals while educating the public and promoting healthy human-wildlife relationships.
We have been delighted to provide Toronto Wildlife Centre with a bountiful harvest of clover, kale, and mealworms this summer for their furry patients !
We deeply appreciate everything TWC does to save our wildlife!

It’s the end of another growing season…sort of!

Still have kale growing for the lovely patients @torontowildlifecentre
We’ve had the pleasure of helping to nourish recovering wildlife with kale, clover, and over 100K mealworms to date this year
Huge thanks to TWC for all the incredible work they do to rescue and rehabilitate wildlife in need

We are also grateful for the chance to support @FeedTheNeedInDurham this year with 424 lbs of veg
Thank you so much, FTND, for your commitment to addressing food insecurity in our community

We’re now prepping for next season by saving seeds such as the Haudenosaunee skunk beans shown here and improving the drainage in our soil with some hard-working tillage daikon as a cover crop

Urban gardening is such a rewarding way to share healthy, locally-grown food with our community

Many thanks to @WomenInNature for their support this season through the Young Nature Leaders Grant program

Haudenosaunee skunk bean, Iroquois crookneck squash, and Northern flint corn. These crops have deep roots in Indigenous agricultural practices, carrying generations of knowledge and culture with them
A huge thank you to @WomenInNature for their support through the Young Nature Leaders Grant this seasonThis grant empowered us to enrich Ajax Indigenous Community & Healing Garden with a variety of seedlings, including Indigenous species

Thrilled to support @ftndurham for another growing season! So far, we’ve contributed 167 lbs of food, and we’re excited to donate even more as the peak harvest approaches
Urban gardening is a joyful way to nourish our families and neighbors with healthy, locally-grown food
A big shoutout to FTND for their incredible work in our community! Your efforts inspire us!o edit.

Click here We were honoured to attend the Unveiling Celebration of The Honeycomb Archway at Ontario Tech’s Windfield Farms The Honeycomb Archway on Aug 5. According to the Office of Campus Infrastructure and Sustainability (OCIS), this innovative structure “not only bridges academia with nature but also serves as a living tribute to pollinators.” What a beautiful and uplifting architectural piece! 😊🌻🦋

For the second year, we have been pleased to support Ontario Tech’s Windfield Farms with native pollinator plants 😌🌻🐝These have included a variety of beautiful species: wild bergamot, showy tick trefoil, wild strawberry (fragaria vesca and fragaria virginiana), lance-leaved coreopsis, green-headed coneflower, pale purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, heart-leaved aster, butterfly weed, common milkweed, and prairie smoke.

Our contribution was generously supported by Ontario Nature’s and Transport Canada’s Youth Environmentalist Award. Ontario Nature @ontarionature extends this award to honour the vibrant spirits of several environmental leaders, including remarkable young Canadians, who lost their lives en route to the United Nations Environment Assembly on Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302. In engaging in this community activity, we hope to carry forward their legacy of safeguarding our planet for future generations 🙂to edit.