All in St Thomas
Over the past five years, our team at ‘young & free press’ has focussed on coordinating the installation of large-scale murals around southwestern Ontario. After the murals are painted, often we are asked for ‘before & after’ photos, as viewers are curious about how this kind of artwork helps to transform urban spaces.
St. Thomas is home-base for our team at young & free, and we are very excited by the potential growth of the city following the announcement of the new Volkswagen / PowerCo EV battery plant set to open in 2027!
Our team at young & free press is thrilled to help announce a new donation of $15,000 to the Elgin County Railway Museum to introduce cycling tours to St. Thomas! With the funds, staff members will purchase a fleet of new bikes, including two e-bikes, and coordinate guided tours that feature the rolling stock gallery at the Museum, the collection of large-scale murals in the city, and the St. Thomas Elevated Park.
Beginning in summer 2023, the team at the STEAM Centre in St. Thomas will coordinate a new engagement project that will invite community members and visitors to produce artwork outdoors! Imagine painting at the St. Thomas Elevated Park, or in the new Westlake-Evans Civic Park downtown, or at other beautiful locations around the city … this is the goal for summer 2023 in St. Thomas! Our team at young & free press coordinated a contribution of $7500 to help make this program happen.
Our team at young & free press is thrilled to help announce a donation of $5000 to the St. Thomas Public Library to support musical performances on-site. Specifically, the funds will be used to invite musicians to play at the library in the new indoor / outdoor space that will connect the Library to the Westlake-Evans Civic Park, which is currently under construction next door.
Encounters @ 365 Talbot is an interactive art installation by Maddie King and Andrew Gunn in downtown St. Thomas. In August 2022, eighteen vintage mirrors were placed in the walkway at 365 Talbot Street, each one drawn from a different city or town in southern Ontario. The mirrors complement the stunning mural on-site by artist Stephanie Boutari. This is a managed installation, and the depth of the piece is meant to be revealed gradually.
Our team at young & free press is excited to announce a donation of $275,000 from a generous local donor to the Elgin-St. Thomas Community Foundation. The funds will be used to enhance the downtown core of St. Thomas.
With increasing numbers of newcomers moving into the London, St. Thomas & Elgin County area – and lots of tourists visiting, too – there is the opportunity to consider how to make everyone feel welcome as quickly as possible. The STEAM Centre and Catfish Creek Conservation Authority have taken an interesting approach by introducing multilingual signs on local hiking trails.
The STEAM Centre is very pleased to announce a contribution of $135,000 from a generous local donor to support the continuation of both the ‘STEAM Community Studio’ and the ‘Students Build Cities’ program in collaboration with Thames Valley District School Board and the team at young & free press. Through these programs, local elementary, secondary and even post-secondary students have the opportunity to contribute ideas to shape innovative community projects.
Maddie King and Andrew Gunn of young & free pressare thrilled to announce that we will be assembling a collection of essays for a new book focusing on the ongoing transformation of our hometown of St. Thomas! This will be a contemporary history of the city.
The Track to the Future Mural Festival made July 2022 a remarkable month in St. Thomas. Artists transformed spaces around the city with large-scale murals, and residents & visitors walked, cycled & skateboarded on local streets & trails to check out the artwork. St. Thomas is becoming a genuine street art capital!
Municipal elections in Ontario are scheduled for Monday, October 24, 2022. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been significant and we need leaders who understand how to adapt and succeed in the aftermath. For St. Thomas, this means recognizing that the city is in the midst of an exciting transformation in which old conceptions of the community are fading and the identity of the place is being redefined.
Recently our friends at the St. Thomas & District Chamber of Commerce asked us to share our thoughts on how to build a workplace that will appeal to members of Generation Z. We work continuously, and rarely take the time to reflect on what has made our approach effective; further, we have never attempted to communicate what lessons could be gleaned from our experience to assist other businesses. Maddie and Andrew collaborated on the article below, blending our voices to share some insights. The tips for employers have been drawn from our team and conversations with young people locally.
The Track to the Future mural project continues in St. Thomas with the addition of a remarkable new mural by Nancy Deleary, who is an accomplished artist and also a Cultural Coordinator at Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. Completed this month at the St. Thomas Public Library, the artwork highlights the importance of storytelling, and will captivate the next generation of children who gather to read books and listen to speakers in the outdoor reading garden.
In June 2020, the Elgin St. Thomas Community Foundation announced that The Estate of Donna Bushell had contributed $100,000 to establish the new ‘Evans Trees Fund’, one part of a series of donations designed to strengthen and invigorate the community. Now, local charitable organizations (including schools) are invited to apply to the fund to support tree-planting initiatives.
Right now, there are two fun ways to discover downtown St. Thomas. First, the simple method … walk the neighbourhood, check out the shops and restaurants, and get a sense of the people living and working there. Second, the mysterious approach … wander the area, absorb the artwork and historical notes, and watch and listen for clues about the past and future of the community. Both options are available to residents and visitors, and we have done a bit of each recently!
With the aim of engaging students in the process of city-building, the Thames Valley District School Board, Ignite Youth Centre, and our team at young & free press have joined forces to introduce a new program called Students Build Cities in St. Thomas.
Our team at young & free devotes a lot of energy to highlighting our favourite St. Thomas attractions. Some landmarks seem to have resonated in the public imagination over the years – the Jumbo monument, Pinafore Park, and the Horton Farmers’ Market, and more recently the murals downtown and the St. Thomas Elevated Park – while we find ourselves still encouraging people to take a closer look at other unique assets in the community. So, we thought that we should assemble our list of ‘Top Ten Hidden Gems in St. Thomas’ – our list actually swelled to more than twenty, which means that we might need to put together a sequel!
Look closely at St. Thomas and the signals are clear … the community is in the process of a great reinvention. Known as ‘The Railway City’, the nickname holds, if only as a historical point of reference and an indication of how assets from that early industry are being repurposed now.
City-building requires vision, funding and resiliency. All three elements need to come together continuously, especially in communities where one, two or all three have been lacking for years and the cultural atmosphere has dissipated. How do we know if a city is building toward something positive or negative? The story is there in every block, neighbourhood, and commercial district.
