Getting Together Promotes Change

None of them work together. But all of them work together.

This is the genius of the centre, built into one of those big, old brick warehouses on Spadina Ave. It pulls people with a passion to change the world out of their basements and mixes them together. It puts them in a beautiful space with big windows, Persian rugs, a communal kitchen with a continuously bubbling pot of coffee. And it encourages socializing, with regular yoga classes, documentary film showings, local speakers and networking nights. Then, like any good matchmaker, it waits for the chemistry.

"How do you make social change happen?" says Tonya Surman, the centre's executive director. "You create the space, attract the right people and create a culture of possibility."

One result: the annual weekend of community-led walking tours around the city in honour of city visionary Jane Jacobs. Chris Winter came up with the idea for Jane's Walks four years ago during a meeting in one of the centre's glass-windowed rooms. He runs the Conservation Council of Ontario, which means he's bent on energy conservation, not walking. But he kept talking about the idea, and soon two of the centre's creators, developer Margie Zeidler and city thinker Mary Rowe caught wind of it. Less than two months later, they launched the first 27 Jane's Walks around the city.