Jane Jacob’s and the East Village Senior’s Association

Yusuf Ali
May 12, 2018
2 min read

Jane Jacob’s and the East Village Senior’s Association

Written by Yousuf Ali

For those of you who may not know, Jane Jacobs was an activist and city planner who championed a community-based approach to city building. She cared deeply about cities and most importantly, she cared deeply about the people whose lives and interactions created great communities.

In memory of Jane Jacobs, every first weekend in May is host to Jane’s Walks. Jane’s Walks are an opportunity to bring people together to explore, talk, and celebrate their neighbourhoods. And this year, the East Village Senior’s Association hosted their very first Jane’s Walk!

You may have seen us ambling through the neighbourhood on Saturday, May 5th and wondered what we were doing! As the East Village Senior’s Association (EV-SA) we wanted to talk about the life of the Village, then and now, the organization we’ve formed and the organizations we’ve partnered with to support one another and build a great neighbourhood for all.

Armed with our EV-SA banner, we led about 40 people on a walk through the community highlighting some of our favourite places. The walk began with D’Arcy Walsh discussing our goal of inclusion and the importance of everyone feeling like they belong and are valued in the community. We passed by the National Music Centre where Roberta Walker spoke about the NMC and reminded us that June 4th and 5th are free for seniors as part of Senior’s Week!

We continued to the Corner Drug Store, where we met with our favourite pharmacist, Abdul Kanji! Abdul spoke about his love for this community and then offered cold water and other beverages to keep everyone’s energy up for the rest of the walk!

Yousuf Ali spoke about Murdoch Manor and King Tower and the importance of Trinity as an organization and their role in supporting seniors in East Village.

The next stop was at the edge of Fort Calgary, where D’Arcy McRae from Metis Calgary Family Services spoke about the history of the Metis people, a group of peoples in Canada who trace their descent to First Nations peoples and European settlers. We learned that the Metis are recognized as one of Canada’s aboriginal peoples under the Constitution Act of 1982, along with First Nations and Inuit peoples.

We were then greeted by Kevin Toole, who described his experience of having a plot in the community garden and the role of gardens in the life of East Village residents.

Our walk continued with Lisa Murphy Lamb of Loft 112 reading us some poetry by the Simmons building and then wrapped up with