Hi neighbours. For the 20th Anniversary of the MRA, we had the idea to put Mimico on Michael Majeski’s Royal York Rd billboard. As you can see below, it did not take much to convince Mike to sponsor some billboard time for us to celebrate volunteering in our community.
Want to get involved?
Want to try something new? New here? There are several more or less local organizations making positive impact in and around Mimico.
The Gardens Lakeshore (Instagram, Volunteer Registration)
Urban Agriculture, Education and food access advocacy in South & Central Etobicoke. In the 10th season with almost 1,000 lbs of organic produce grown and welcoming 25 new urban ag trainees.
Friends of Humber Bay Park
Regular community cleanups in the spring and fall to protect the local environment, wetlands, and wildlife.
Food For Now – Supporting the community in fighting food insecurity.
Mission: At Food For Now, we strive to provide a safe haven for the community. Our mission is to offer essential support and resources that empower individuals in South Etobicoke.
Green Mimico (Instagram)
Green Mimico is a group of Mimico residents who want to take a community-based approach to addressing climate issues. Our focus is to look at climate change from the point of view of improving resilience, improving preparedness, and prevention.
Email us and we will invite you to our WhatsApp group!
Lakeshore Environmental Gardening Society
Mission: We envision a South Etobicoke filled with dynamic gardens and collaborative gardeners who will create and maintain local food forests and robust native pollinator gardens and waystations to protect our environment…one plant at a time.
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Plant and Seed Exchange
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Year-round FREE Seed Library that is open to anyone
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Donate community garden produce to the Daily Bread Food Bank kitchen
Citizens Concerned About the Future of the Etobicoke Waterfront (CCFEW)
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CCFEW was formed in 1989 to monitor development along the Etobicoke waterfront and was instrumental in ensuring that not only would there be public access to the waterfront, but that there would be parkland along the waterfront as well.
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CCFEW organizes popular bird walks, sponsored by Birds & Beans:
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Saturday, Nov 14, 9:00 – 11:00 at Colonel Samuel Smith Park
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Saturday, Dec 5, 9:00 – 11:00 at Amos Waites Park
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Lakeshore Arts (Volunteer Page, Instagram)
We are a team of passionate community arts professionals, driven by our mission to develop transformative and socially engaged community arts programming. As a team we value creative thinking, collaboration and believe in supporting one another.
CommunitiCare Health (Volunteer Page)
Providing access to a full range of community health care and support services to keep our clients mentally and physically well, living at home, regardless of where they call home.
LAMP Community Health Centre (Volunteer Page)
LAMP provides a wide range of health and community services. They serve everyone, and pay special attention to lowering or eliminating barriers to accessing care for vulnerable community members in need of care.
LAMP, together with the Lakeshore Affordable Housing Advocacy & Action Group (LAHAAG) and the South Etobicoke Community Land Trust (SECLT) they are hosting an evening of community discussion about affordable housing action and activities for National Housing Day.
📅Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2026
🕛Doors Open: 5:30 PM
🗣Panel Discussion: 6:30 PM
📍LAMP Community Health Centre, 185 Fifth St.
There sure are more organizations and we can update this list in the future.
Remember, the MRA is fully volunteer run as well.
Small investments of our time have real impact:
📣 Voice: An organised community gets meetings, answers, and results. 60 residents sent our recent letter to Metrolinx & Minister regarding Mimico GO Station issues.
🌳 Stewardship: Parks, playgrounds, streets and shorelines survive because people who use them care for them. Thanks CCFEW, Friends of Humber Bay Park & many others!
🛠️ Resilience: During storms, outages, or emergencies, the people nearby are who show up first. Learn with Green Mimico, and meet your neighbours who are making Mimico more resilient.
👶👵 Kids and elders: both do better when there are trusted eyes beyond the household.
🧭 Local knowledge: Find the heat pump installer or babysitter you can trust: neighbours know. Shoutout to The Hustle!
💚 Mental health: Loneliness is now understood as a public-health risk; casual daily contact is a real antidote.
🎨 Culture and memory: Murals, gardens, festivals, and stories only exist because someone bothered to make and keep them. Thanks to Lakeshore Arts, Mimico Village BIA & Mimico by the Lake BIA and many more!
🤝 Trust: Repeated small favours (a borrowed ladder, a recycling bin put away) build the social fabric everything else rests on.
Want to get more involved with the MRA?
Say hi via email and let’s go for a walk together!
What else?
Home Flood Protection Workshop
Wednesday, November 18 • 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM, Registration Required here.
Learn how to protect your home from flooding and receive a personalized Basement Flood Mitigation Kit at No Cost! * Limit is one kit per household. Addresses will be verified upon entry to the workshop.
Learn about common causes of residential flooding and practical steps you can take to help protect your home. IMPORTANT NOTE: One registration per home address. Please include all family members in ONE registration.
Organized by Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program (SNAP) of the TRCA Learn about the program at trca.ca/climate-ready-homes Sponsored by RBC. More info on the event page. Not a MRA event.
What is Climate Ready Homes?
Led by Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), Climate Ready Homes is a FREE program designed to equip residents with personalized information about water and energy use, solid waste management, sustainable gardening, health and well-being, climate resilience, and available rebate and incentive programs in their areas.
Learn about the program at trca.ca/climate-ready-homes.
Heat Pumps
From the Toronto Home Energy Network:
All the major media outlets covered the National Heat Pump Rebate announcement a few weeks ago.
There have been a couple of BIG updates since the initial announcement. Here are the two most important ones:
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The Province’s rebate program (the Home Renovation Savings Program) was just extended into 2027, which means you WILL be able to get the Provincial rebate AND the Federal rebate! Most Toronto homeowners will see ~$3,500-$4,000 back on their cold-climate heat pump when they combine the rebates. Depending on your setup, that could be a 30-40% discount. That’s huge! Plus, the Federal rebate is geared to income, so some homeowners (especially retirees!) will get back even more . I included the Government’s income cut-off charts in our recently updated blog.
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If you install a qualifying cold-climate heat pump before the Federal program launches, you can still qualify for the rebate! In other words, the Federal program has retroactive coverage dating back to Nov 1st, 2026. I got into the nitty-gritty details of what a “qualifying cold-climate heat pump” is in our blog.
So, if you have a furnace or boiler breakdown before the Federal program launches, you can apply for the Provincial rebate before your installation starts, then apply for the Federal rebate once it launches. Money is flying everywhere!!
Just keep your receipts and submit them to the Federal program “within 6 months.” The government hasn’t said when that clock starts, so play it safe and submit as soon as the program launches.
One final update: “Both emergency and planned heat pump installations are accepted by the program, you do not need to remove your existing system nor do you need to demonstrate that it has broken down.” ~Source.
So, you can keep your furnace as a backup, as long as your heat pump is sized to heat your whole home. The program is very friendly
Researching your first heat pump doesn’t have to be a bore, and you don’t have to do it alone! Here are two things you can do to boost your heat pump knowledge:
1. Attending a Heat Pump Party lets you “test drive” a heat pump. There’s nothing for sale, and you’ll get insights you can’t find online. Candidly, our biggest challenge with a Heat Pump Party is getting people to leave at the end of the night!!
2. Talking to a heat pump expert before calling up contractors is the difference between stress and success. We often hear that people call up the company that maintains their furnace to ask about heat pumps. But a company that is good at maintaining furnaces may have no experience installing cold-climate heat pumps.
Our Contractor Guide will point you towards the real heat pump experts. Don’t let these rebates slip away! Find a trustworthy installer!
Recreation Programs
Did you know about all the recreation programs at Mimico Coronation Club House?
You neeed to check online what’s currently available or call 416-396-7378 (option 1).
See you around, Mimico!