WHO WE ARE
Sandra Campbell
Abundance GTA and its events are the result of a vibrant, imaginative team of artists, planners and farmers and food activists. Our Artistic Director is Sandra Campbell.
Sandra is a published writer of fiction and non-fiction, a script writer, videographer, and teacher. She is a City of Toronto Book Award nominee, a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada, and a member of The Centre for Social Innovation.
Her novel Getting to Normal was named as one of NOW magazine’s best books. Since 2003, Sandra's creativity workshops for adults and youth – Writing the Body, Inside Out and The Writers’ Quest – focus on the dynamics of the senses, memory and the imagination in the creative process.
Mariko Uda
Mariko is a long-time environmentalist and GTA resident. Her awareness was sparked in Grade 9 in Mississauga when she read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Since then she has steered her career in an environmental direction, studying biology & chemistry, civil engineering, and architecture, with the intention to be part of designing a greener future. Beyond the technical, Mariko is interested in establishing a deep an thorough connection to place: the bedrock, soil, watersheds, infrastructure, biota, and people's history of the place where she is living. As part of the Abundance project, she'd like to get to know the Pickering Lands in an intimate way, and bring others along on her journey
Kyla Schwarz-Lam
Kyla is a life-long lover of food, and a passionate believer in the importance of food and agriculture in building communities. With her connections in food production, policy, and advocacy, Kyla hopes to play a part in growing Toronto into a more welcoming community- and food-oriented city. She looks forward
to growing affection for the Pickering Lands and sharing its stories, and the stories of its residents, with Toronto. On her own time, Kyla enjoys gardening
on her balcony, going to farmers’ markets, cooking, and eating with friends and family.
Hannah Renglich
Hannah has worked in rural, peri-urban, and urban communities across Ontario and beyond in order to support food systems transformation, community development, and social, ecological, and economic justice. Her international experiences in sustainable food systems and food sovereignty lend insight to her locally focused work. She is passionate about all things community – community ownership, community governance, community health, community leadership, and community sufficiency (a term she thinks she may have coined). Hannah’s leadership of the Local Organic Food Co-ops Network across Ontario as it underwent exponential growth in membership led her to questions of both individual and organizational sustainability, integrity, and evolution. With a strong belief in the power of questions, language, and diversity in all realms, Hannah’s work strives to weave together the threads of equity and solidarity with joy, kindness, and love. Hannah has an entire shelf in a cupboard devoted to her tea collection. She knits incessantly, canoes whenever possible, practices amateur photography, and writes poetry perpetually on the edge of her professional work (literally and metaphorically). Hannah’s preferred surroundings are star-blanketed lakes and tree-lined horizons, circular dining tables surrounded by conversationalists, and any room filled with books and/or children. She currently calls Toronto home.
Madeline Marmor
Madeline Marmor has volunteered with different food and social justice groups as well as on farms and urban gardens in Canada and beyond. Her parents' garden was her playroom growing up and the joy of being outside, learning about growing and experiencing the land has intensified for her as she has grown older. Madeline has always believed in the power of food to unite people and help them become active participates in their own lives. She believes that is with food that we can begin to change the world. The land from which the food comes from as well has the potential for inspiration and heartened connections with one’s self, with one's community, and the land itself. For her, Abundance GTA is part of a much bigger hope of awakening humans to their personal and collective potential action in living in harmony with themselves and this beautiful planet, through awakening Torontonians to the Pickering Lands' potential to grow.
Madeleine Bondy
Madeleine C. Bondy graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton, with a Bachelor of Arts and Science (Honours). She is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Health at the University of Toronto with a specialization in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences. She is passionate about urban agriculture and the relationship between community food security and health. Madeleine's interdisciplinary qualitative health research has focused on community gardening. She is also very interested how sense of place and connection to the land can lead to strategies to promote health equity at the local level.