Saturday, March 25th
10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Dublin St. Church
68 Suffolk St. W., Guelph, ON, N1H 2J2
(click here for Google Maps directions)
The Resilience Festival 2023 is a comin’!
Transition Guelph is thrilled to once again host the 12th annual Resilience Festival on it’s traditional date – Earth Hour Day.
A celebration of spring and community for one and all, it’s all about sustainable food, community resiliency, collective healing, and supporting our local community.
Festival Sponsors
Please thank our sponsors by supporting them!
Room Sponsors
Coffee Sponsor
Seedy Saturday Sponsor
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Prize Table Sponsors
Festival Program
Seedy Saturday
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Auditorium (and Hallman room)
Our main event and most popular part of the Festival! A spring market with a focus on seeds and vegetable gardening.
John Craig: Seedy Saturday Coordinator
To the Power of ‘Re’. What’s in a Meme?
10:30 AM to 12:00 PM
Library Room
Our world of consumerism has led us to the notion that “more is better”, and “what’s in today is out tomorrow”. We find our lives full of things we don’t need gathering dust which seldom see use. Now, do you remember the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? Let’s revisit them, but under a new lens. Let’s re-discover how to invest in ourselves and how it can lead to less “stuff” and waste in our lives. Let’s take our lead from nature and Rethink our strategies, Reinvest in our community, and Rejuvenate ourselves.
Barry Orme began working on farms at age 8 and since has spent over 30 years growing food for both himself and others. He has been an archaeologist, a graphic designer, ran his own childcare, authored a children’s series and recently taught at Guelph’s Trillium Waldorf school. It is a passion of Barry’s to find ways of reducing consumption towards a lifestyle that puts the people at the center not the product,. He sees reinvestment in community as the path to a healthier life. Barry lives in Guelph with his wife and two children.
Activating a network to support existing co-living & Intentional community ventures.
10:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Hallman Room
We are gathering people who are on the ground creating local, regional examples of what it means to transform how we live in urban spaces to ask: what is the network or hub that is needed to facilitate collaboration, story telling, identify research needs, share resources, and accelerate the movement as a whole?
This will be an extended facilitated session which aims to activate a network or hub that will support established efforts to create cohousing and intentional communities in the local area and determine how to link these efforts into existing or emerging national structures. The session will bring together individuals and organizations that are interested in or currently working on creating these types of communities.
Speakers: Karim Rizkallah (Clarens Commons), Mike and Mary-Kate Craig (Junction Village Guelph), Sally Ludwig (Watershed Cohousing), and Mike Fortin
Clothing Repair Workshop
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Library Room
Learn how to do basic repairs to your jeans – mending rips, patching, hemming, tapering, and taking in waistline for a better fit. Many of these techniques can be applied to mending and altering other types of clothing including coats. Some zipper repair techniques will be covered as well as button sewing tips.
Jill Gill is a former instructor of Theatrical Costuming in the Drama Department at the University of Guelph. She currently spends several hours a week mending clothing at Chalmers Community Services Centre in downtown Guelph and at the Guelph Tool Library’s ‘Repair Cafes’.
Reimagine Food: Circularity across the Food System
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Hallman Room
Dispelling greenwashing myths, tackling statistics and offering conversation starters about where your food comes from and how circularity can be built into the Canadian food system.
Presented by Jordan Grigg and Sonia Preisler of Our Food Future
Intro to starting a home garden
2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
Library Room
You can grow vegetables at home in a variety of different ways. This workshop is going to focus on outdoor growing in pots or in the ground. We will discuss what are deal breakers for growing vegetables successfully and where you can get creative.
Lisa Conroy is the Farm Educator and farm team member at Ignatius Farm. She has been involved in growing vegetables is some form her whole life and hopes to inspire you to grow some too!
Seedy Saturday Vendor List
Seed & Nursery
Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds
Growers of organic heirloom and organic farm selected seeds. Open-Pollinated & Non-GMO seeds for the home and market gardener nationwide. Family owned farm. Friendly service. All of our offerings are Certified Organic by Pro-Cert.
Backyard Seed Savers
Garden seeds, microgreens, seed gifts.
Backyard Seed Savers is a local Guelph company offering organic, rare, and heirloom garden seeds, microgreens, and landscaping services.
Royal City Nursery
Antler River Seed Co.
We are social enterprise business, and collective of seed keepers, stewards & advocates for Seed Sovereignty. We offer support for the creation of Seed Libraries & Seed Saving Hands-On Learning Workshops.
GAIA Organic Seeds
We are a small seed company based out of Ottawa. Our primary goal is to nurture biodiversity one seed at a time. We offer about 1000 varieties of seeds and are always on the lookout for new ways of diversifying. We specialize in heirloom seeds for home gardeners and bulk seeds for market gardeners.
Community Garden & Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Ignatius Jesuit Centre
Guelph Community Gardens
The City of Guelph’s Community Gardens Program encourages the use of designated spaces for growing fruit, vegetable and pollinator gardens that benefit the community. Community Gardens are vibrant spaces that enable residents to work together to improve their neighbourhood, the sense of community and connection to the environment.
https://guelph.ca/living/recreation/parks/community-and-pollinator-gardens
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Coyote Hollow Farms
Talk to us about our journey from urbanites to ecological farmers. Hear about our roadside stand. We may have a small number of CSA shares for sale.
Yep, we’re contrarians. No website, no social media, cash/cheque only.
Non-Profit & Partner Organizations
Yorklands Green Hub
Yorklands Green Hub is a non-profit organization working to create a one-of-a-kind green hub in Guelph for the benefit of the community on part of the former Ontario Reformatory heritage lands.
The vision of Yorklands Green Hub is to cultivate a sustainable environment through education and research on renewable energy, water, conservation and urban agriculture on our chosen site with its fields, wetlands, streams and ponds.
Master Gardeners
“Guelph-Wellington Master Gardeners -- Providing advice and inspiration to the local gardening community.”
TreeMobile
TreeMobile offers fruit and nut trees and edible perennials at affordable prices. Info on this terrific program going into its 13th year and literally thousands of trees planted in the Guelph area!
Guelph Seed Library
Seed swap.
The Guelph Seed Library is a community hub for seed sharing. We curate and inventory donated homegrown and commercial seeds, and buy bulk seeds, to share with growers in Guelph. Our focus is on food varieties, but we also stock seeds of herbs, natives, dye plants, pollinator-friendly flowers, teas and medicinal plants. We believe seed access fosters local food sovereignty.
https://guelphtoollibrary.org/guelph-seed-library
Seeds of Diversity
We are a group of seed savers from coast to coast who protect Canada's seed biodiversity by growing it ourselves and sharing it with others. Every year, we multiply the most vulnerable seed varieties that we can, exchange seeds with each other, and keep those varieties alive and in cultivation for future gardeners to enjoy.
Our Food Future
We will be giving free circular product swag (upcycled soap) and talking about concepts such as regenerative agriculture, upcycling and the circular food economy.
Our Food Future
The Eco-Just Food Network is a grassroots initiative to build an ecological local food economy in the Greater Toronto Area. We believe in food security through food sovereignty and in creating alternatives to the current capitalist system. We operate three programs: 1) our Food Corps, 2) the Eco-Just Time Bank, and 3) the Eco-Just Youth Coop.
Other Cool Vendors!
Woodside Root Cellars
Info on how Woodside can create a passively cooled root cellar for your home or social enterprise.
The Full Moon Apothecary
Erin's Farmers market
The Erin Farmers’ Market is a great place to shop for healthy, local food. We maintain a 51% ratio of farmers at our market (all local) and all our vendors are from Erin or the surrounding area. Our market is at the historical fairgrounds with lots of free parking!
There will be a selection of items for sale such as vegetable seedlings, beeswax candles, and ideally a variety of items from some of our vendors such as honey, maple syrup, dried herbs, preserves and handmade soaps.
WaterFarmers
Info on our services, including food gardens, rainwater harvesting for irrigation, ecologically friendly landscaping such as pollinator habitats and rain gardens. We will have look-books and pamphlets for visitors to look through to see project examples and possibly a monitor showing project examples as well.
Sunfire Herbals
Sunfire Herbals creates small-batch, local, organic and wildcrafted healing
botanicals. We work with plants that have been hand-picked by us, sourced from small herb farms (like ours) and grown or foraged by farmers and wildcrafters in our bioregion.
Rebel Foods
Since 1993 Rebel Foods has been serving the Guelph community with flavours from around the World, such as our renowned salsa and incredible burritos.