Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for One of Our Own!

The Open Door’s own Trish O’Reilly-Brennan recently received a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work in the community. She was presented with the award by Toronto-Danforth MP Craig Scott at a ceremony at Queen’s Park on Saturday, February 2.

O’Reilly-Brennan’s life of community involvement began when the dynamic singer/actor moved to the east end almost 10 years ago and was inspired to get involved by the positive, close-knit character of her new neighbourhood. Her work has coupled her love of community (and community- and capacity-building) with her interests in the arts and the environment (green energy and urban agriculture in particular).

She started small in 2005 by organizing her immediate neighbours to do a safety audit of their block (in response to a nearby assault), then in 2008 spearheaded the naming of a local lane (Ben Kerr Lane), complete with an enthusiastically attended block party and naming ceremony (at which musicians from the neighbourhood performed two original songs written for the occasion as well as some by the lane’s namesake, Ben Kerr!). Facebook photos of Ben Kerr Lane naming ceremony

Trish is Chair of the recently formed Pocket Community Association (PCA website) (the Pocket is the area bounded by Jones, Greenwood, Danforth and the railway tracks near Gerrard). Toronto Star article on the Pocket

But her proudest community achievement is being the instigator of “the Open Door” — which (as visitors to this blog will already know) is the name for a group of non-religious community programs based at St. David’s Anglican Church at Donlands and Danforth. The Open Door is built around the concept of connecting local ability with local needs, using space generously provided by St. David’s Anglican Church. Our motto is “The help we need is here.”

Some key Open Door programs include:

St. David’s Community Garden – Community volunteers grow vegetables on land behind the church, which are donated to the food bank at Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre. Facebook page for St. David's Community Garden

Mosaic Storytelling Festival – An accessible all-ages multicultural festival of oral storytelling co-produced with east end colleagues visual and theatre artist Jerry Silverberg and well-known Canadian actor Liisa Repo-Martell (working as the East End Arts Collective). Mosaic Storytelling Festival web page

Rooftop Solar Generation Project – Community members are working towards the goal of installing solar panels on top of St. David’s Anglican Church (and the residential building next to the church, St. David’s Tower) using the green energy cooperative model — to realize the benefits of carbon reduction, energy efficiency, and community building.

Open Door Arts ­ – Arts programs for children and adults taught by east-end musicians, actors, and visual artists. Past classes have included printmaking for adults and theatre/music and visual arts classes and camps for children. Next up is a March Break Shakespeare Is Boffo! camp (Shakespeare Is Boffo! webpage), led by east-end theatre director Jacqui Burke in which children ages 9 to 14 will explore Shakespeare’s Hamlet though stage combat (with foam  “boffer” swords). Facebook page for Open Door Arts at St. David's

Trish confesses, “I am probably not a conventional community volunteer. I am drawn to things that use my creative ability and my kind of ‘hands on’ energy. I like doing things. I like making things. I like bringing people together to make new things happen in a creative way. I love dreaming up new projects and seeing them actually come to life. And the east end is such a great place to be doing this. There is so much talent here and people are so invested in their community, it’s not hard to invite them in and get great things happening!”

“It was great being presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal. I didn’t know that getting a medal was going to be so much fun,” joked the vivacious redhead, “but it was a real thrill actually being presented with a medal, and after the ceremony Craig Scott’s office had prepared ‘high tea.’ The scones with Devonshire cream were absolutely delicious!”

“But, seriously, the best part was meeting all the other medal recipients for Toronto-Danforth. It was such an amazing group of people. There was a really strong, positive feeling in the room. There are just so many people doing so many wonderful things in our community. It was inspiring to meet people and talk to them and find out what they are doing — like Joan Howard who lost her son Kempton, who was himself a community worker and youth leader, to gun violence, and has since worked to campaign against gun violence — or Carolyn Parker who works with East York Strategy (East York Strategy webpage), a group of east-end churches working to ‘reduce crime and create good in our neighbourhood.’ And who knows, maybe this chance for people in our part of the city who are working on different programs to meet face to face like we did on Saturday will lead to future community partnerships…”

“It was an honour to be included with such wonderful people. I hope this will just be the beginning of more good things to come.”    

The Reluctant Yogi — Open Door Yoga at St. David’s

Spiritual serenity is an elusive commodity in our house. I don’t meditate daily. Although I probably should. I don’t practice yoga daily. Although I probably should. In fact, I don’t mediate at all and I only go to yoga because — well, because I’m the one who organized the class. (Why did I do this? I guess somewhere in my heart of hearts I must have known I needed a yoga class…)

I’m always grumpy about going to yoga. I stump out of the house at the last possible moment, grumbling about all the other things I have to do and how I can’t afford the time.

I bolt up to the bedroom, fling off my daytime clothes and rummage madly in the mess for my yoga tights.

I rush my dinner. Or I skip my dinner and have it later (I’m getting smarter and have finally noticed that yoga on a fully tummy is less than ideal).

I grab my yoga blanket.

And off I go grumbling.

And here’s the thing: I’m always glad I went.

When I walk down the stairs and into the parish hall, with the lights suitably dimmed and the other participants gathering, taking off their coats, and laying out their mats, before I even have my mat out, I think I start breathing a little deeper.

Sure. I have a lot of stuff to do. And this is probably a complete waste of time.

But I like the gentle way that our instructor, Judith, has about her. I like the candles she lights; I like the music she plays.

I like this quiet hour down in the church basement with my friends and neighbours, as we struggle to stretch out our tight places and wobble to keep our balance. It’s a friendly, supportive, non-competitive class; most of the time, we are so busy doing our own work, we don’t notice if someone else has to bend their knees to get into a pose the “experts” can do with straight legs, or cheat by sitting on a blanket to raise the butt up a little… We just let go of our judgments and expectations and relax and see what is possible this week.

Me, I’m a firm believer in “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” So I do my yoga badly (but as well as I am capable of right now) with all my heart.

And at the end of the hour, I’m always completely different. My voice is lower, I move more slowly, I laugh deeper. I take twice as long to walk home as I did to get there. What’s the rush?

Sure by tomorrow I’ll be completely stressed out again.

But once a week I come back and try all over again.

I’m always grumpy about going. But I’m always glad I did!