Wednesday October 22, 2025

Take Me Outside is a non-profit, charitable organization committed to raising awareness and facilitating action on nature connection and outdoor learning in schools across Turtle Island / North America.

Take Me Outside Day is October 22, 2025, and it kicks off a week of celebration with a free virtual event filled with activities, speakers, and prizes. The goal is to raise awareness about outdoor learning by encouraging educators to take their learners outside.

To learn more and to register your class, grade or School visit: Take Me Outside Day: A Celebration of Outdoor Learning – Take Me Outside Take Me Outside Day: A Celebration of Outdoor Learning.

Do you love to garden? Have you heard of Grow-A-Row?

Grow-A-Row is a way to share food with your community. Harvest Manitoba redistributes locally grown produce to a record 50,000+ Manitobans that turn to food banks each month. All produce is welcome, but root crops are encouraged due to their long shelf life. Cucumbers, tomatoes and even crab apples are also welcomed!

Their 3 most needed vegetables are: Carrots, Onions and Potatoes.

Here’s how you can help:

• At Home: Grow an extra row (or two) of produce in your backyard, or turn an empty neighbourhood space into a community garden. Invite your neighbours, family and friends to do the same.
• At school: This is an excellent class project. Students can learn how to plant and tend a garden while learning about food insecurity, gardening, nutrition and philanthropy.

At the Community Club: Community clubs can get involved as well by creating community gardens or adding rows to existing gardens.

Sign up to Grow-A-Row for Harvest Manitoba.

Green Municipal Fund

Growing Canada’s Community Canopies initiative funds planting the right type of trees in the right places so that communities across Canada can grow, manage and protect their tree canopies.

When communities plant trees they benefit from shade and wind protection, enhanced biodiversity, climate resilience, better health and well-being. 

To qualify for tree planting funding projects must contribute to the planting of new trees with municipal government involvement and accountability.

As tree planting benefits communities in diverse ways, projects with planting that supports environmental, economic and social objectives will be more likely to receive funding.

The deadline to submit a full application for this funding is September 18, 2025 (aiming for the Spring 2026 planting season). Visit the Green Municipal Fund for more information.

Volunteer Manitoba is the leader and catalyst for engaging all Manitobans in volunteerism, supporting a variety of individuals and organizations to develop capacity and engage volunteers.

What are some benefits of volunteering?

• develop new skills
• make a difference in the community
• build a stronger resume
• boost post-secondary applications for youth
• meet new people
• learn about different cultures and perspectives
• improve mental health

Consider volunteering in Southern Health-Santé Sud.

Volunteer Manitoba has a list of volunteer opportunities (click HERE), including some specifically for youth that are on summer break (click HERE).

Wild pollinators such as butterflies and bees are crucial to human survival. Climate change, land development and pesticide use threaten their survival, and therefore ours as well. The Butterflyway Project is a citizen-led movement growing highways of habitat for bees and butterflies across Canada.

In 2017, the David Suzuki Foundation initiated the Butterflyway Project, and its sister L’effet Papillon in Quebec, in five Canadian cities. This volunteer-led movement brings nature home to neighbourhoods, one butterfly-friendly garden at a time.

From inception to 2024, the foundation trained 1,800 volunteer Butterflyway Rangers in hundreds of communities throughout Canada. Rangers then connected with neighbours to create habitat gardens in residential yards, school and corporate grounds, boulevards and parks. When 12 or more patches are established, a new Butterflyway is born.

The Ranger role is detailed and a select few inspirational Ranger stories are told in this series of short videos called Butterflyway Diaries or read about how this project evolved here.

If you are interested in starting a pollinator garden at home or in your neighbourhood, check out these resources.

If you are interested in learning which plants are native to Manitoba, check out the Master Gardener Association.