Help Us Continue Our Environmental
Educational Programs
2015/2016
Ontariogreen is actively seeking sponsors for our environmental education programs. Interested individuals and businesses are invited to contact Liz Benneian, manager of Environmental Education at 905-562-3819 or email ontariogreenca@gmail.com
Donations to Ontariogreen can also be made through Canada Helps by clicking below
Ontariogreen's Executive Director, Liz Benneian, speaking about environmental advocacy to the Oakville Chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women.
Ontariogreen is now offering its presentations through online meeting platforms so we can reach schools
anywhere in Ontario.
2016/2017
100 in-class environmental educations programs were delivered to 7,000 students in eight Ontario Regions this school year. One community tree planting was held in Beamsville with about 50 native trees and shrubs planted. One Urban Forest Tour for Newcomers was conducted in Oakville. One free public seminar on landscaping and gardening with native plants was held in the Town of Lincoln. Ontariogreen was invited to be a guest speaker at two events.
Please click on our "Newsletters"
tab to see our achievements from 2021 and 2022.
Our Achievements
Getting Newcomers outdoors to enjoy and learn more about our natural spaces is the focus of Ontariogreen's
Urban Forest Tours.
Ontariogreen hosted the Town of Lincoln's first community tree planting in April 2017. There have been three more tree plantings since then in Beamsville parks.
More than 12,600 students in eleven Ontario Regions received in-class environmental education programs from Ontariogreen Conservation Association, a registered charity, during the 2015-2016 school year. This involved 156 presentations. For the first time this year, schools in the Essex, Waterloo and Simcoe regions and as far away as Ottawa invited Ontariogreen’s educators into their classrooms. Also this year, for the first time, Ontariogreen delivered a few presentations via Skype. From Terrific Trees to Restoring Nature, from Beneficial Bugs to Zero Waste, these presentations took global issues and connected them to the communities where the students lived, providing unique, local information that teachers say is difficult to find elsewhere. This school year, Ontariogreen created a new presentation on Creating The Circular Economy and presented it to Wilfred Laurier University in Waterlo.
2019/2020
Ontariogreen is pleased announce our partnership with the Fleming Family and the Town of Lincoln to build the Val Fleming Butterfly Garden in the new Rotary Community Park in the heart of Beamsville. This garden, featuring native Ontario flowers, shrubs and trees, will be an educational showpiece that will provide a beautiful addition to the park while teaching the value of biodiversity and native plants. The garden is expected to be completed by the fall of 2021. We thank the Fleming family for their donation of $75,000 for this wonderful project.
Ontariogreen was honored to arrange a memorial tree planting for Jessie Warner, a young woman from Dorchester Ontario who love nature and travel and who was a talented writer. We arranged to have 10 native trees planted along a main street in Dorchester that was meaningful to Jessie and we were very pleased to have Jessie’s family and friends attend the planting.
Like all organizations, Ontariogreen’s activities were greatly affected by COVID this year. Nevertheless, some highlights from July of 2019 to June of 2020 include providing 19 free in-class environmental science presentations to 690 students in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
In July, Ontariogreen hosted another Urban Forest Tour in Oakville for 40 new immigrants. We are proud of our many years of partnership with the town’s Newcomer Information Centre.
Ontariogreen also partnered with the Niagara Native Gardening Club to have a non-profit, native tree sale at the farmer's market in Beamsville. Almost every tree was sold within the first 45 minutes and all were gone by the end of the event. We intend to do another contact-free sale in the fall. We thank Adam Koziol from Earthgen Nursery for providing the trees.
As well, our executive director was a guest speaker at several events including the Oakville chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women where she spoke about environmental advocacy; at the Burlington Historical Society where she spoke about Trumpeter Swans and at the Niagara Native Gardening Club were she spoke about selecting native plants for your garden.
Ontariogreen was invited to participate in two Regional initiatives: one to prevent flooding and another to access the impacts of climate change. We were also invited to be exhibitors at a birding convention in Hamilton and an Ontario Invasive Species event in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
2018/2019
From July 2018 to June of 2019, Ontariogreen provided free in-class environmental science and geography presentations to almost 5,400 students in 9 Regions of Ontario; hosted two community park tree plantings in the Town of Lincoln and a Meet the Trumpeter Swans event in Burlington, conducted an Urban Forest Tour (Oakville) and was guest speaker at 6 community events.
2017/2018
From September 2017 to June 2018, we provided 37 free, in-class environmental science presentations, hosted two community tree plantings in Beamsville parks, and conducted an urban forest tour for new immigrants (Oakville). As well I was invited to be the guest speaker at 7 community events. Our programs involved 2,628 people, mostly elementary students.