CKMS News -2026-07-27- Youth food markets serving fresh local produce at the neighbourhood level

 by: dan kellar
Waterloo, ON – Throughout the summer, youth in Waterloo region will be organizing weekly fresh produce markets with vegetables grown at 6 communities gardens and sourced from several local farms.  Dozens of youth, aged 14-19 are participating in the Youth in Food Systems program which involves innovative approaches to garden and market management.

In a press release, Grace Ihejiamaizu, the Program Manager for Youth in Food Systems wrote “This year, youth Market Leaders have also helped design different Pay What You Choose approaches for their markets, exploring how fresh, local food can be made more accessible while giving young people practical experience in leadership, teamwork and community engagement.”

The markets run every Wednesday until August 26 at Eastwood Collegiate Institute and Victoria Hills  Community Centre in Kitchener, from 4:00pm – 6:00pm, and at the Fiddlesticks Community Centre in Cambridge from 3:00pm – 5:30pm.

This show features an interview with Luma Abuarqoub, the summer Youth Program Assistant for the Youth in Food Systems program. Luma details the work of the youth, and we discuss where the program fits in larger efforts of food security, and how the hazardous air quality brought on by climate change fueled forest fires in northern Ontario have affected their operations this summer.

The YFS program, now in its 5th year, is organised by Seeds of Diversity, a Waterloo based charity focused on seed-saving and resilience in local food systems.