Reimagining Vancouver: From Pools to Permaculture

 🌱 Reimagining Vancouver: From Pools to Permaculture

Neighbours Feeding Neighbours — One Garden at a Time

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

What if instead of pouring millions into maintaining a giant chlorinated pool — we filled it with forest, food, and life?

What if Kits Pool, iconic but seasonal and exclusive, was transformed into a coastal permaculture garden, a community-led food forest where children learn, elders rest, birds return, and neighbours feed each other?

That’s the kind of future I dream of — and I know I’m not alone.

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🍓 Why We Need to Rethink Public Space

In Vancouver, we face a crisis of disconnection.

• Food insecurity is rising — while lawns, lots, and boulevards lie unused.
• Seniors, disabled people, and youth are isolated — while developers hoard empty land.
• Climate stress, mental health struggles, and social divides are growing — while big box stores import what we could grow right here.

It’s time to reclaim our neighbourhoods, not just with protest signs, but with soil, seeds, and solidarity.

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🌿 What’s Possible Right Now

✅ You can grow food in your yard — and even your boulevard.
✅ Community gardens are supported by the City of Vancouver.
✅ Vacant lots can be transformed — with enough vision and people-power.
✅ Everyone can help — watering, harvesting, planting, storytelling, cooking, teaching, sharing.

This is more than gardening — this is urban regeneration.

Inspired by people like Ron Finley ("Gangsta Gardener") and Jenny Pell of permaculture fame, I believe we need a city where:

• ✨ Everyone contributes — and everyone is nourished.
• ✨ Children and youth get hands-on education.
• ✨ Seniors and people with disabilities have a purpose and a place.
• ✨ We grow beyond survival into abundance.

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🌊 What If… We Filled in Kits Pool?

Let’s play with the idea:

Instead of 2–3 months of limited pool access each year, what if we planted:

• 🍇 Native berries (salmonberry, huckleberry, salal)
• 🌾 Edible and medicinal plants (camas, yarrow, mint)
• 🌲 A grove of trees for oxygen, shade, and quiet
• 🎶 A community gathering space for music, healing, learning
• 🧺 Raised beds, compost systems, solar lights, community fridges

It could be our city’s first oceanview permaculture park — feeding bodies, minds, and spirits all year long.

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🛠 Let’s Get Growing

🌻 I’m calling out to neighbours, artists, gardeners, cooks, elders, youth, and anyone who believes another world is possible.

📍 Let’s map local vacant spaces
💬 Let’s talk about how to help each other — not just ourselves
📦 Let’s grow our way out of dependency — and into community resilience

If you’re interested in:

• Helping start a boulevard garden or shared food plot
• Donating seeds, tools, compost, or time
• Hosting a conversation, film night, or skill-share
• Just sharing your dreams for a greener, kinder city…

👉 Please reach out. Let’s make it real — together.

🌿 "We are the ones we’ve been waiting for."

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📝 zipolitazcv.blogspot.com
📷 @zipolita | 🎨 Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
#FoodJustice #GrowYourOwn #KitsReimagined #PermacultureVancouver #NeighboursFeedingNeighbours #RonFinley #JennyPell #CommunityAbundance #ResilientBC

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