What's your Bag?

Do you have a pet project? Scroll down to Projects to review a list that are already defined. If you don’t find your own pet project in the list, send us your idea so we can include it and announce it in the Good News newsletter. With enough interest, it can be added to the Patio Chats and a committee can develop it further.

Even BLC has a Bag!

Supporting BLC's Bag

If you like the idea of supporting BLC both visually and financially, we can refresh your shopping bag(s) with new graphics for only $40 each. Send me an email if you would like to drop off your bag at one of our Patio Chats and we’ll update and return it to you.

We hope you'll help us raise funds with this bag. BLC is a volunteer organization and we can't expect our volunteers to also fund all of these projects. If you don't need a refreshed bag, why not just click the Donate button?

Creating BLC's Bag

But first, I need your help to create an image for the Build Local Communities shopping bag. Do you have the time and graphic skills?

  1. Create a logo for BLC - perhaps an outline of the rooftops of a few houses with a tree and "BLC". 
  2. Create a graphic with the new BLC logo and the slogan - “Reducing plastic is my bag -- Yoda”
  3. A local printer will silkscreen the logo and slogan onto swatches that we'll sew onto existing shopping bags to give them new life. Do you have equipment to do the sewing?

Projects

We can each improve Vancouver in our own way. Here are a number of projects that we can work on - either making changes ourselves or lobbying the City to do so. If you want to help out, email [email protected] about any that interest you. If your pet project isn't on the list yet, email us with your idea.

  • Pop-up Recycling Stations
    The City accepts recycling at recycle depots around the city but does not provide curbside pickup for all items. We can set up weekly Pop-up Recycling Stations to collect plastic bags, film, and foam, styrofoam, light bulbs, batteries, small appliances, electronics (phones, tablets, laptops, smoke detectors, thermostats), digital media, vaping devices, and ink & toner cartridges. It only takes a two person team an hour or two each week to staff a station and we can make many residents happy.

  • Patio Chats 
    The City doesn’t listen when they hold “hearings”. We can take the temperature of the residents in our neighbourhoods on the issues that are important to us. “Sticker stations” at Patio Chats are a great way to meet our neighbours.
  • Fun Activities in your Community
    Here's a list of fun activities that we can do in every community in Vancouver. We don't have to wait for someone else to start, we can begin them ourselves.

  • Chatting with your neighbours
    Creating community email and phone lists make it easier to socialize and discuss security issues. We can help you with door knocking to explain the fun community activities in your neighbourhood. Canadians want to work and play together but just find it difficult to get started, especially after Covid. Send us an email if you'd like us to help you get started.

  • 20 Minute Community
    For over one hundred years, cities have been designed around the automobile. Wouldn't it be great to be able to live, work, shop, play, and socialize within 20 minutes of your home without having to use a personal car? It will take some time to reorganize our city, but we should start now! This is a liberating idea. Some people have been lying about this as a way to keep people imprisoned in their own neighbourhood. It's the other way around; you shouldn't be forced to leave you neighbourhood.

  • Traffic Plan for Commercial Drive
    Commercial Drive is an ideal location for a pilot program to make a calm and safe shopping area from Adanac to 14th Ave. The shops, services, and residents have maintained its special character for decades. To make it easier for shoppers to visit, regardless of their transportation choice, these are some highiights.
    1. Provide free Hop-On Hop-Off electric buses or golf carts to give shoppers access to 24 blocks of shops & services.
    2. Change the area south of 1st Ave to single lane traffic in each direction like it is north of 1st Ave,
    3. Remove rush hour parking restrictions north of 1st Ave. Commercial Drive should be a shopping area, not a freeway.

Other communities in the Lower Mainland might like to try this pilot program, too.

  • Circular Green Economy
    How can we keep as much as possible out of the landfill and recycle everything else? This PDF gives some choices; some are hard, but many are easy and we should do them now.
  • Choosing your next vehicle
    If it's time for you to buy or lease a car or truck, this PDF explains the benefits and disadvantages of the different drive trains and other factors to consider.

Whether you live in Grandview Woodland or elsewhere in the Lower Mainland, to discuss any of these projects, phone 604 817-4727 or email [email protected]