BIG On Bloor Festival - June 21, 2008

The stretch of Bloor that goes from Lansdowne in the west to Christie in the east has serious problems with drug trafficking and other crimes. There are many empty storefronts and the businesses that do exist are often struggling. Much of the Bloor Street strip has a general air of depression about it, even though the surrounding residential streets are for the most part good places to live. Over the years a number of community groups have sprung up to address problems on certain sections of Bloor but up until last year they were working separately.

However, on February 21, 2007, 63 people representing a variety of local groups met at Bloor Collegiate to create the Bloor Improvement Group or BIG for short. BIG is the brainchild of Dyan Marie, - a local artist who in 2002 founded a community group called DIG IN. Her idea was for the various groups who were already holding small community festivals to come together and organize a single big festival that would stretch from Lansdowne to Christie and possibly farther.

Since the first meeting last February, the BIG steering committee has been meeting monthly to organize the festival which, if all goes well, will be held on June 21. (You can read the minutes from some of these meetings here.)

Last year, BIG received a grant from the City of Toronto to hire a community safety coordinator. The person hired for the job is Jessica Rose who was involved in a a project called the The Movement Movement which included things like having people run through the ROM. You can see a clip of this online. View Quicktime movie.