TORONTO — October 7, 2026 —
Thirty local leaders from across Ontario have been selected to join the 2026 Ontario Community Changemakers (OCC) cohort, receiving $5,000 in grant funding, leadership development training, and peer networking opportunities to bring community-focused projects to life.
Powered by 8 80 Cities, Ontario Community Changemakers is a multi-generational leadership and micro-grant program that supports residents with bold ideas to activate public space, enhance civic engagement, and foster social inclusion in their communities. The 2026 program will run from October 2026 to October 2027, including a 2-day Studio in Toronto. Changemakers will have 12 months to implement their projects while receiving ongoing training and capacity building from the team at 8 80 Cities, as well as a network of local public space experts.
“These selected leaders from places like Toronto, Guelph, London, Six Nations of the Grand River, Kingston, Elliot Lake, Thunder Bay, and everywhere in-between highlight the province’s exceptional capacity for change. They will begin connecting with each other at the upcoming Studio,” says Katie Konstantopoulos, Project Manager at 8 80 Cities. “Over the course of the next year, these Changemakers will be part of a multigenerational peer support group that is learning and experimenting with them every step of the way.”
Now in its sixth year, the OCC program has become a launchpad for local leaders and placemakers that reflects this province’s diversity of people and geography. The program supports leaders of communities of all sizes, including rural areas, small towns, cities, and First Nations territories, as well as individuals whose perspectives and lived experiences have historically been and are currently underrepresented in the placemaking sector, including those from Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities, and 2SLGBTQI+ backgrounds.
“Our multigenerational approach continues to inspire community leaders to bring together people of all ages and abilities to hold necessary conversations and build capacity for change,” says Jiya Benni, Director of Programs and Development at 8 80 Cities. “This year, you’ll see Changemakers focused on social movements, cultural stories, and making spaces for children, families, and older adults in their neighbourhoods. This aligns with our vision of cities being places for people to grow up and grow old in.”
8 80 Cities reviewed over 300 applications this year, making the selection for the 2026 cohort highly competitive. The selection process was incredibly challenging, and the team is grateful for the generous feedback received from the OCC Advisory Committee, Balsam Foundation, and Park People during the final selection period. With the addition of the latest cohort, the Ontario Community Changemakers’ network has now grown to 150 Changemakers from across the province.
“Ontario Community Changemakers is a program that, through its six years of existence, has allowed the implementation of 150 projects across Ontario,” says Camila Uriona, Communications Manager at 8 80 Cities. Each changemaker is a catalyst, a decision maker who works in and for their community. Each year, we receive strong and highly competitive applications that, when chosen, turn into 30 stories of change, growth and leadership.”
The 30 participants will meet in Toronto on October 23 and 24 for the Ontario Community Changemakers Studio. This immersive two-day learning opportunity includes city tours, workshops, presentations, and meetings with local grassroots community leaders. The Changemakers will be able to build relationships with alumni and peers and work through their project ideas with support and coaching from 8 80 Cities. The program also features ongoing virtual coaching and capacity-building throughout the one-year grant period.
8 80 Cities powers the program, with funding from Balsam Foundation.
To learn more about the program, visit Ontario Community Changemakers.
Meet the 2026 Ontario Community Changemakers
(For individual headshots, click here.)
Emmanuel Ademola
Project Papilo
London
Emmanuel believes strong communities are built through connection. Project Papilo was created to address the isolation many Black men experience by providing a welcoming space to connect, build friendships, and support one another through soccer. By bringing Black men together in local parks, Project Papilo uses soccer as a tool to build trust, promote physical and mental wellbeing, and foster a sense of belonging. The goal is to create a sustainable community initiative where men of different ages and backgrounds can develop meaningful relationships, strengthen their support networks, and contribute to a healthier, more connected London.
Jennifer Alicia
Burning Desire For Change
Toronto
The project idea is to host poetry fires around the City of Toronto inviting participants from the queer community to create poetry responses and performances that are informed by our intercultural teachings related to fire. We will come together through queerness to collaborate, co-create, write poetic responses, and share around the fire, dreaming of a queer utopia one fire at at time. Participants need to show up with an open heart and curiosity!
Ahsen Bhatti
Resident Empowerment in Moss Park
Toronto
This project entails organizing a series of seminars for Moss Park residents and others interested in the area with experts in tenant organizing, policy-making, urban planning, housing justice, health equity, community safety and more. The goal is to expand residents’ capacity to meaningfully advocate for social change while simultaneously building community cohesion. Moss Park is a historically marginalized neighbourhood, with one of the lowest life expectancy rates and highest crime rates in Ontario. However, it also includes strong local leaders from diverse backgrounds, and this project aims to channel their grassroots passion and commitment into positive systems-level impact.
Andrea Bidgood
Neighbourhood Streets Lab: Play, Mobility & Belonging
Guelph
The Neighbourhood Streets Lab uses Guelph’s existing block-party process as a real-world test of what a Play Streets model could look like. The project will combine open and guided play for children with workshops and activities for adults and youth, creating space for neighbours to connect, learn and make something together. We’ll document what works, where the process creates barriers and what people value most. The goal is to turn that experience into practical insight, build a proof of concept, and advocate for a simpler, more accessible pathway so more neighbourhoods can benefit from Play Streets and similar community-led projects.
Erica Duque
Biking and Kids: Parenting on Two Wheels
East York, Toronto
For many new parents, having children means putting the bike away for years. Not because they don’t want to ride, but because there are no readily available answers to key questions. What equipment do they need? What difference does each piece of gear make? Can riding with a child really be safe, practical, comfortable and fun?
This project will answer those questions through hands-on sessions where parents can explore and try equipment for riding with children. The goal is simple: give parents the knowledge, access and confidence to make cycling with kids work.
Benjamin Finley
The Garden Organ
Campbellford
Co-designed with community members, we will co-build an outdoor musical instrument in one of Campbellford’s community gardens/public spaces using reclaimed and forgotten musical instruments. Working together with a local machinist, we will construct and co-imagine an instrument that is weather-friendly, safe, low-maintenance, and fun for all! The playing of the instrument, as well as the design and building processes, are meant to foster collaboration and joy!
Suleekha Hirsi
LittlePlacemakers
Brampton
Little Placemakers is a community art and civic engagement project that invites children to share their ideas for the future of Brampton. Working with elementary schools, the project will facilitate creative workshops where students explore questions like “What makes you feel welcome in Brampton?” and “What would your dream neighbourhood look like?” Through drawing, painting, storytelling, and collaborative mapping, children will express how they experience their city and what they hope it becomes. Their artwork will be displayed in a public exhibition, with recurring themes compiled into a community report shared with schools, community organizations, and the City.
Stephanie Holt
St. Thomas Ontario Recounting Youth (S.T.O.R.Y.)
St. Thomas
Oral storytelling can help young people learn about themselves and their world. Stories make us human and unite us. When we hear someone tell their story we know a part of them. Knowing the people around us, we are more likely to contribute time and energy back into the community. When our children and youth feel heard and seen, they see the worth in their own contributions. Through Ontario Community Changemakers, Stephanie Holt of Tales All Around will bring the oral storytelling art into local schools and St. Thomas spaces to collaborate with youth using story to shape our community.
Reyna Ingel-Kainth
One Community: Connecting Cultures Through Play
Brampton
One Community: Connecting Cultures Through Play brings families together in parks and community centres through traditional childhood games from around the world. Each session will feature one or two games per country, depending on complexity. Sunny days will focus on active outdoor games that encourage movement, teamwork, and healthy play, while rainy or winter days will feature indoor mind games, strategy, and creativity. Families will also learn about each culture through storytelling, traditions and activities. The project will reflect Brampton’s diversity by including both larger and smaller cultural communities, while connecting parents with local programs and resources.
Fatemeh Izadi
Walk Together Ontario
Richmond Hill
Walk Together Ontario brings residents of all ages and abilities together to explore their neighbourhoods and identify barriers to safe, comfortable, and accessible walking. Through guided community walks, participants will use an existing digital engagement platform to document missing sidewalks, unsafe crossings, accessibility challenges, poor lighting, and opportunities to improve public spaces. Their observations will be shared through an interactive map and discussed in a community workshop. Residents will then work together to identify priorities and develop practical recommendations for municipalities and local organizations, transforming everyday walking experiences into meaningful civic action.
Timothy Lam
The Hagerman Railpath
Toronto
The Hagerman Railpath is a community-led material and story commons exploring how an active industrial landscape can also support civic life. At its centre is a co-created Circular Field Station, evolving through a year-long cycle of discovery, connection, making and revealing. Workers, newcomer-run community spaces and youth will uncover everyday practices, railway stories and material flows, informing collective making with reclaimed materials and lightweight public-space interventions. These activities build a community archive and invite feedback. By learning from people, materials and informal adaptations sustaining Hagerman, the project explores how communities can incrementally shape public space without disrupting its productive role.
Christy Lee
Neighbourhood Connector Circles for Older Adults
Waterloo
Neighbourhood Connector Circles will bring older adults together in accessible shared spaces to host activities, exchange skills, share local knowledge and welcome neighbours who may not normally participate. Participants will use a Community Contribution Passport to recognize actions such as attending, helping organize, sharing a skill or verifying a local resource. The project will activate underused community spaces, strengthen social connection and create simple opportunities for civic participation. A resident-verified resource board and implementation toolkit will help sustain the circles and allow other communities to adapt it.
Christopher Longtin
Love Surrounds Us
Hamilton
Love Surrounds Us starts from a hard number: in 2024, Hamilton recorded its highest level of hate-motivated crimes and incidents in over a decade, with Black, Jewish, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities among those most frequently targeted. As we work on solutions, we must also highlight another truth. Hamilton is a city where love blossoms and surrounds us. This project captures stories of love and care from Hamiltonians, gathered and marked at the exact locations where they happened. We must remember that love outnumbers hate. This is motivation to build a city that represents all of us.
Fiona McAlister
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot
Kitchener Waterloo
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot transforms an unused parking lot into a stage for community creativity. Anyone can sign up to perform a Shakespeare scene or speech, either solo or with a group, and present it in whatever style inspires them. Free to participate in and attend, the event removes barriers to performance and encourages connection, experimentation, and fun. The focus is not on polished productions but on making Shakespeare accessible, welcoming, and enjoyable for everyone.
Jeannie Meyer
Elliot Lake Adaptive Winter & Summer Sports Sampler
Elliot Lake
The two-season adaptive sports pilot uses Elliot Lake’s existing recreation facilities to give marginalized residents low-barrier access to adaptive sports equipment. This program will use a variety of local recreational sites and natural features, with specific activities decided based on resident interest, equipment availability, and partner capacity. The methods of delivering the equipment and training will remain flexible and will be adjusted according to funding, travel, and partner availability. The project will highlight Elliot Lake’s accessible recreational resources, assess resident interest, and establish the basis for inclusive participation for program design and resource prioritization beyond the grant year.
Deya Miller
Project Pryde
Six Nations of the Grand River
Project Pryde will talk with youth about the pro’s and cons of using film, media and technology to communicate with the outside world as well as talk harm reduction within media. We will learn the basic tools used in film, media and technology such as camera operating, setting up audio and creative tools like adobe suite. We will also develop some content that reflects Projects Pryde’s mission in encourage more youth to express themselves.
Harina Mokanan
The Exchange
London
The Exchange is a participatory arts experience that brings people together around a meaningful question, a shared theme, and a chosen artistic medium. Participants arrive with a creative “asset” such as a poem, song, photograph, object, or story and are guided through a structured process of sharing, active listening, reflection, and dialogue. Co-designed and facilitated with professional artists and community partners, each Exchange creates opportunities for residents to connect, contribute, and build collective meaning. The project uses creativity as a pathway to belonging, empathy, social inclusion, and civic participation, while transforming cultural spaces into more participatory community environments.
Iryna Molodecky
Belleville’s Big Draw Festival – Make Your Mark!
Belleville
Belleville’s Big Draw Festival will join a worldwide movement celebrating drawing as a universal language that brings people together through creativity.
Local schools, galleries, libraries, community centres, cafés, and community organizations will transform everyday places into welcoming spaces for creativity, connection, and participation. Through art hives, workshops, exhibitions, discussions, and public drawing activities, people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities will be invited to experiment, collaborate, share ideas, and express themselves. The festival will activate shared spaces through collaborative drawings and public artworks, creating opportunities to contribute, connect with neighbours, and build a stronger sense of belonging and community ownership.
Jessica Myers
The Ravine Commons
Oakville
The Ravine Commons is a series of seasonal gatherings designed to help Glen Abbey residents connect with one another and the natural spaces in their own backyard. Through a spring nature challenge, summer storytelling night, fall pumpkin walk, and winter lantern walk, the project creates simple, recurring reasons for neighbours to come together throughout the year. Rooted in the idea that strong communities are built through shared experiences and traditions, The Ravine Commons uses nature, storytelling, and seasonal rituals to foster belonging, strengthen neighbourhood connections, and help residents build a deeper relationship with the place they call home.
Aisling Nolan
Re:Love
Toronto
This project invites kids to bring creativity and imagination to reuse and repair. By bringing worn, ripped, or stained clothing, kids will have the opportunity to reinvent their items with colourful patches, playful designs, and tie-dye, making something old new again and normalizing using what we have over buying something new.
Aisling’s hope is to use this event as a pilot for the broader vision of building Toronto’s first Circular Economy Hub – a permanent space that is part recycled mall, makerspace, repair cafe, and space for collective imagining.
Courtney Pomfret
FirstAid For All
Kingston
Working directly with the vulnerable population helping people with education and awareness of first aid within the people we work with was non-existent. People are usually too scared to call 911 due to trauma. Clients have expressed that they don’t know what to do to help with basic wound care, first aid and dealing with overdoses while waiting for help or when deciding to call for help. We are looking to certify people with First Aid who are vulnerable and, on the streets, so everyone on the streets has access to some knowledge and resources around basic first aid.
Viviana Paltrinieri
TORONTalk: Living Stories of the City
Toronto
TORONTalk is a seven-session storytelling program bringing together 20 older immigrants and long-time Toronto residents. Through shared readings, creative activities, games, and storytelling, participants explore their relationship with the city and transform personal memories into shared knowledge. The program culminates in a community festival featuring a Story Walk and interactive Story Tables, where residents of all ages create and share stories. Visitors contribute Heart Maps identifying valued places, areas needing improvement, and ideas for more welcoming neighbourhoods. Young volunteer Story Keepers document the project through interviews, photography, and film, fostering intergenerational exchange.
Khalil Rantissi
Receipts of Home
Toronto
Receipts of Home is a pop-up participatory public art installation asking: What did you pay to build a life here, and what did you receive in return? Participants anonymously reflect on the financial, emotional, cultural, professional, and social costs of migration, displacement, or starting again alongside what they gained, including safety, opportunity, freedom, and belonging. Through creative prompts, visual art, and storytelling, their contributions form a growing collective display. Each participant receives a personalized receipt-style souvenir. A call to action invites ideas for making public services, neighbourhoods, and community spaces more welcoming while amplifying underrepresented voices and strengthening community connections.
Sofi Rostampour
Growing Relationships Through Land and Community
Toronto
Growing Relationships Through Land and Community will see to the activation of an urban farm plot through seasonal gatherings, plant stewardship, traditional ecological knowledge, and opportunities to cultivate relationship with land together.
Kate Tutu
EquaPal
Toronto
EquaPal is a disability-led, dignity-centred social enterprise designed to improve access to assistive, adaptive, and medical-adjacent equipment through donation, safer matching, repair pathways, education and policy-informed data. Kate Tutu is creating a circular assistive-equipment access ecosystem that connects unused devices, unmet community needs, partner expertise and repair capacity. Existing public programs and second-hand listings are fragmented causing many disabled people, seniors, people with temporary injuries, newcomers, low-income individuals and people without adequate insurance in Ontario limitations to access essential equipment when they need it. In the long run, the changemaker envisions EquaPal as a trusted equality pal.
WhiteEagle
All Nations Drumming Circle
Burlington
All Nations Drumming Circle is simply this: Every Nation from around the world has a drum. And drumming has the power to Unite us. The heartbeat of Mother Earth is the drum! The gathering will activate a beautiful public space while creating opportunities for cultural exchange, community dialogue, relationship building, and personal growth. Through music, culture, Indigenous teachings, and teachings from around the world, the aim would be to reduce social barriers, strengthen civic participation. To celebrate Burlington’s growing diversity, and to create a sense of belonging for all residents.
Alyssa Mitra
Yet Here I Am
Georgetown
“Yet Here I Am” weaves together the voices of women across generations, each carrying her own experience of pregnancy loss. Their stories unfold through silence, stigma, and the search for support, cross-cut so that experiences separated by decades sit beside one another. A final voice enters gently at the end, the filmmaker’s own, bridging past and present through a shared emotional truth. The film is deliberately spare, leaving silence intact rather than filling it, and moves from loneliness toward hope. It exists so that a grief usually carried in private can be spoken about out loud.
Ana Xwexx Morena
The Winter Living Room (Belonging After Dark)
Toronto
The Winter Living Room (Belonging After Dark) will transform an accessible community room near Queen Street East and Church Street into a free winter gathering space for people living at the intersections of 2SLGBTQIA+, Black, racialized, newcomer, low-income and HIV-affected identities. The Winter Living Room aims to also share community-generated practices with local organizations and encourage low-cost changes that make indoor gathering spaces more inclusive.
Mohit Dudeja
Transit with Dignity: Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay
Transit with Dignity will bring Thunder Bay transit riders together to identify barriers across the transit system and develop practical, community-informed solutions. Through surveys, interviews, bus-stop audits, and co-design workshops, students, older adults, people with disabilities, newcomers, Indigenous community members, advocates, and professionals will document challenges including winter exposure, inaccessible stops, limited seating, snowbanks, long waits, and poor pedestrian connections. The project will produce a transparent priority map, public report, community presentation, and outreach to municipal partners and potential sponsors. By centering lived experience, it will strengthen civic participation, social inclusion, accessibility, and more responsive transit planning and equity.
Victor Zhang
Xíng dòng zhě (行动者): Civic Mobilizer
Markham
Xíng dòng zhě 行动者 is a project aiming at transforming the Chinese/Asian communities in Markham and Richmond Hill into active civic participants of social justice movements. Through interactive workshops, we will tackle critical themes like Chinese/Asian Canadian history, migrant workers rights, 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion and Indigenous solidarity. We hope to make space for meaningful dialogues and reflections that deepen our historical understanding of our collective identities, and to centre historically marginalized voices within the communities, while fostering cross-cultural knowledge exchange and cross-community solidarity and allyship.
About Ontario Community Changemakers
Ontario Community Changemakers is a leadership development and micro-grant program powered by 8 80 Cities and funded by Balsam Foundation. The program supports local leaders across Ontario in building skills, networks, and projects that strengthen public life in their communities. For more visit: ontariocommunitychangemakers.org
About 8 80 Cities
8 80 Cities is a nonprofit organization based in Toronto that works to create healthier, more equitable, and more inclusive communities. Through research, advocacy, and community engagement, 8 80 Cities works to improve public spaces and mobility so that of all ages and abilities can thrive. For more, visit: 880cities.org.
About Balsam Foundation
Balsam Foundation exists to enable and galvanize the well-being and potential of our communities. We are committed to a future where all Canadians benefit from a high standard of health and well-being. For this reason, our funding will reflect approaches that put people first, strike a balance between personal and collective wellness, and acknowledge the impact of social determinants of health and the context within which people live, work and play. For more, visit balsamfoundation.com.
Media Contact
Katie Konstantopoulos, Project Manager, 8 80 Cities, kkonstantopoulos@880cities.org, 289-212-3530.
Jiya Benni, Director of Programs and Development, 8 80 Cities, jbenni@880cities.org, 647-800-5590.