All tagged Parks
Our team at young & free press is thrilled to be involved with the development of two fresh park spaces in downtown St. Thomas. Over the past year, we have worked in collaboration with the Parks, Recreation and Property Management department at the City to develop preliminary concepts, and early designs have been prepared by Arthur Lierman Landscape Architecture.
Over the past five years, our team at ‘young & free press’ has focussed on coordinating the installation of large-scale murals around southwestern Ontario. After the murals are painted, often we are asked for ‘before & after’ photos, as viewers are curious about how this kind of artwork helps to transform urban spaces.
Beginning in summer 2023, the team at the STEAM Centre in St. Thomas will coordinate a new engagement project that will invite community members and visitors to produce artwork outdoors! Imagine painting at the St. Thomas Elevated Park, or in the new Westlake-Evans Civic Park downtown, or at other beautiful locations around the city … this is the goal for summer 2023 in St. Thomas! Our team at young & free press coordinated a contribution of $7500 to help make this program happen.
Our team at young & free press is thrilled to help announce a donation of $5000 to the St. Thomas Public Library to support musical performances on-site. Specifically, the funds will be used to invite musicians to play at the library in the new indoor / outdoor space that will connect the Library to the Westlake-Evans Civic Park, which is currently under construction next door.
The Track to the Future Mural Festival made July 2022 a remarkable month in St. Thomas. Artists transformed spaces around the city with large-scale murals, and residents & visitors walked, cycled & skateboarded on local streets & trails to check out the artwork. St. Thomas is becoming a genuine street art capital!
Municipal elections in Ontario are scheduled for Monday, October 24, 2022. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been significant and we need leaders who understand how to adapt and succeed in the aftermath. For St. Thomas, this means recognizing that the city is in the midst of an exciting transformation in which old conceptions of the community are fading and the identity of the place is being redefined.
Our team at young & free devotes a lot of energy to highlighting our favourite St. Thomas attractions. Some landmarks seem to have resonated in the public imagination over the years – the Jumbo monument, Pinafore Park, and the Horton Farmers’ Market, and more recently the murals downtown and the St. Thomas Elevated Park – while we find ourselves still encouraging people to take a closer look at other unique assets in the community. So, we thought that we should assemble our list of ‘Top Ten Hidden Gems in St. Thomas’ – our list actually swelled to more than twenty, which means that we might need to put together a sequel!
On Thursday, June 11th, our team at young & free press announced an extraordinary donation of $750,000 from the Estate of Donna Vera Evans Bushell to the City of St. Thomas. This contribution includes $500,000 to support the establishment of the new Westlake-Evans Civic Park downtown, as well as $250,000 to boost the ‘Track to the Future’ mural project that will be coordinated through Railway City Tourism. We are very excited to help St. Thomas take another step toward becoming a major street art destination in Ontario.
