Urban Ecosystems & Monthly Giving

June 17, 2026

We are having an exciting 2026! And I want to take a moment to uplift Kayla, the Compost Ed Centre’s Education Director, and her work with the urban gardens program. 

We celebrated Kayla’s 10-year work anniversary in February. Her sustained commitment to the Compost Ed Centre has had an incredible impact on the organization and our community. She is the primary steward of the Compost Ed Centre’s demonstration site, and if you’ve been by for a visit or a site tour, you know that the demonstration site is a community magnet and refuge for local biodiversity. (And pro tip: also, an excellent place for an afternoon coffee break!) 

It is through the success of this space that we have been called on to sustain and grow other projects throughout the City of Victoria. In response to community demand, we have rapidly scaled up the number of urban green spaces stewarded over the past three years. 

• In 2024, we started coordinating two new community allotment gardens with 70 plots, fruit and nut trees, composting systems, and communal flower beds. 

• The City of Victoria has 300 km of boulevards (that grassy area between sidewalks and the street), and they could all be transformed into a gorgeous network of native plant gardens and/or food growing spaces. We’ve been doing our part to create that network by installing new boulevard gardens every year, and we are installing new ones in 2026. 

• And in big moves, we’re developing a new community food forest on Garden St set to open (officially) in the fall of 2026. The food forest has existed as a “third space” garden and orchard for over three decades, and it features cherries, hazelnuts, multiple types of apples, berries, and flowering perennials. (We describe it as magical!) 

Through this work, we are improving the health of urban ecosystems through an emphasis on biodiversity, defragmentation, and soil health. 

And it can be easy to forget that urban areas are ecosystems. Ecosystems sustain communities and cultures, underpin food and water supplies, and are the cornerstone of economies, livelihoods, and wider society. And our ecosystems rely on healthy soils that function as vital living systems i.e. compost is at the heart of EVERYTHING! 

We want to continue doing this work. We want to demonstrate the value and viability of tending to urban soil health as a cornerstone of long-term community prosperity and security. But we’re at capacity. Much like the healthy soil needed to sustain a health ecosystem, we need your support to sustain our work. If you are able to, please consider becoming monthly donor today to support this work. 

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