UPDATE (April 25): The Ontario government has amended its emergency orders to permit the use of allotment gardens and community gardens during the pandemic.
Community gardens are essential services
Category: April 2020
On yer bike: a great way to get around during physical distancing
UPDATE (April 23): re-Cycles is now open for limited sales of bikes and parts. They will be open on April 28 and 30 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Justine Bell: “Being active and engaged in my community is in my blood”
by Alayne McGregor Centretown has a new public school board trustee–who’s deeply concerned that every student gets the education they need to contribute to society. Justine Bell was sworn in as the trustee for Zone 10 (Somerset/Kitchissippi) on February 18.…
Centretown’s food banks need you more than ever
by Alayne McGregor The COVID-19 pandemic has put the Centretown Emergency Food Centre on thin ice–and it could use your help. When panic buying started in mid-March, the food bank couldn’t buy many of the staples–beef, chicken, sugar, toilet paper,…
Four Weeks in October: The City of Ottawa and the pandemic of 1918
by Robert Smythe By now we are all too conscious of terms like “flattening the curve”, “social distancing”, and “self-quarantine”. A pandemic’s behaviour has become frighteningly familiar. In the final days of World War I the City of Ottawa was…
Operation Ramzieh: neighbourly love, delivered
by Alayne McGregor For Abbis Mahmoud, the smiles and thanks are what have sustained him during the first month of the current pandemic. Mahmoud is the founder of Operation Ramzieh, a program that delivers food boxes to seniors and other…
Ottawa drags feet on pedestrian safety
UPDATE (April 27): Sections of Bank Street, Somerset Street West, and the Queen Elizabeth Driveway have been reserved for pedestrians and cyclists
Don’t push that button!
by Alayne McGregor It’s called “beg button ballet”–the frustrating extra step pedestrians have to go through in order to legally cross at many Ottawa intersections. And, in the current pandemic, it’s also raising worries about virus transmission caused by many…
A message from the editor of the BUZZ
by Alayne McGregor Life changed abruptly just after we published the March edition of The Centretown BUZZ. Within the space of two weeks, all the upcoming shows and events we had featured in the paper were cancelled. The public gatherings…
What’s on(line) for April
by Tony Wolfarth This month, we’re focussing on some of the many free performances you can watch from home. NAC Presents The National Arts Centre (NAC) is now providing a way for Canadian full-time musicians to perform online. The concerts…
COVID-19 and homelessness
by Gail McGuire For many of us, our COVID-19 problems have been limited to distancing, handwashing, and disinfecting surfaces in our homes. The Cornerstone Shelter For Women in Centretown is for women without homes, due to mental, financial, or physical…
Planet of the Scapes: the comforts of home
by Pearl Pirie Self-isolation has made cooks out of most of us. It may yet bring back some dishes we’d forgotten: you can mix mushroom soup with canned green beans, pour it over chow mein noodles, and bake. (Don’t, though).We…
Time on our hands: making bread with what you’ve got
by Marna Nightingale “It is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises.” M.F.K. Fisher, How to…
MPP Report: Empathy in action
by Joel Harden It’s a wild, unsettling time. Life normally flashes by. Now the minutes of the day stick together as we stay home, and scour for news of the latest updates. Canada’s public health care system has been our…
Centretown Community Association Report
by Jack Hanna Volunteers flood in When the Centretown Community Association sent out a call for volunteers to help during the COVID-19 crisis, people responded. There were more than 200 names on the CCA’s volunteers list by early April. “The…
The Good, the Bad, and the Bumpy
by Ryan Lythall We are living in challenging times. If you’re a person who is physically and/or mentally challenged, life can quickly become overwhelming these days. For the most part, mainstream media has largely avoided discussing how COVID-19 has affected…
Reflections on COVID-19
by Stephen Thirlwall A growing number of people around the world have been expecting a major environmental calamity clearly linked to inappropriate human actions on our environment. We wanted someone else to blame and to fix it. This is not…