Fay Cole, a Jane Finch activist, lived in the Firgrove community with her husband and six children from 1975 to 1980. As of June 2011, Fay is retired and she and her husband live in Mississauga.
What brought you and your family to the Jane Finch community?
We could not find any place to live because I had six children at the time. We were living at Oakwood and Rogers Road and through the help of a friend, I was introduced to Ontario Housing (Toronto Community Housing) and she was sort of like an inter-mediator because she told them (Ontario Housing) that if they didn’t find accommodation for us then, I would have to call the Children’s Aid to take the six children.
What was going on at the time in Jane Finch?
I wasn’t aware of what was going on because I came to the Jane Finch community with my own misgivings. I believed that going to live in Ontario Housing was a step backward so I didn’t want to associate with anyone and I didn’t want to know what was going on. So, at that time, I didn’t know about the activities in the community. My youngest, who was born in ’74 was one year old and the oldest, Devon, born in ’59 was 16.
Were you aware of any issues that were going on in the City or issues that were affecting people?
It’s funny because I wasn’t politically involved at that time; my concern then was with my children. Whatever I became involved in had to do with my children. For example, when I lived at Oakwood Avenue, I was involved in the school. I wasn’t involved in the school in the community at first but I made sure my children got connected to girl guides and scouts. So, my involvements were very much centred on my children.
Tell me about your involvements.
My first involvement was with Firgrove Public School. I had gone in to register my children and remember very distinctly, that there was a notice there describing what made this area a special needs area and what made the school special needs. The list included things like single parents, coming from Ontario Housing and involvements with different agencies. That really upset me because I lived in Ontario Housing and I didn’t see how that made my children special needs. I also found out that they didn’t have any parent involvement in the school. That was what got me going!
I started to be involved by introducing myself to the Principal. I shared some of my misgivings about that notice I had read. I also talked with him about what appeared at the time to be lack of parents’ involvement in the school. I got some of the usual stereotypical answers: “parents are not interested”, “parents will not come out” and such things. I don’t remember how we went about having that first parent and teacher meeting, but it was well attended. Another thing I must mention is that, at that time, the public school children were attending school in portables because the school which was built for the public school was occupied by the Catholic school. That was a sore point with parents and I felt that this was one way of getting parents involved. The reason given for this occupancy was that although the school was built for the public school children; registration for the Catholic school far exceeded registration for the public school. When I moved into the Firgrove community, not many of the units were occupied, so I think that could have been a justifiable reason at that time.
Attendance at our parent/teacher’s meetings grew and we named our group – Firgrove School and Family Association. I was made President after a while but I remember that we worked as a team. I remember Carol Scott (a resident in Firgrove) who was a real go-getter and before we made our presentation to the Board, we decided to do things to raise money and to enrich our children’s education. The first thing we did was, we planned and carried out a Fun Fair. I guess everyone was surprised that we raised over $2,000, which at that time was a lot of money. We decided that we wanted to use that money to bring musicians into the school and we shocked some when we said we wanted musicians from the symphony and so on. Some may had thought that we wanted reggae or something like that but we wanted to expose our children to the arts. We (the parents) felt that the results of that Fun Fair indicated to the school principal and everyone else that we were really serious.
We then discussed the fact that we wanted our children in our school and out of portables. We met with Trustees, the Superintendent and everyone we were told to meet with. We then asked the principal to help us to set up a session at the Board where we could make a presentation to the trustees. We did make our presentation to the Board. I think we were very forceful. We were told afterwards that some of the trustees were not aware of the fact that our children occupied portables while the Catholic students were in the school. It took some time but after that, the Catholic School moved, as their school, St Francis de Sales, was built within that period of time.
There were people who helped us. I cannot forget people like Peggy Edwards, Mary Lewis, Gail Mercer and Hans Deval. We were told that if we wanted things to happen in the area, we had to network. That was a new word for me. Peggy Edwards was with the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre at the time; so I think that time was allotted for her to work with us. Our Firgrove School and Family Association with help from the people, I identified above, helped us to identify needs in the school. We didn’t do formal analytical studies; we just talked to the teachers. We heard that our children were coming to school sometimes without breakfast, so we set up our own breakfast program; we set up lunch programs and we set up after-school activities. The breakfast program was a nutritious meal and the children did activities afterwards.
The other thing we decided to take on was; our children didn’t have things like sleds and all those fancy things we saw in playgrounds in other areas, so we decided that we were going to raise money and build a playground. Again, we approached the Board because we figured that they should put some money into it. Ontario was giving grants at the time so we applied and was successful. The Board promised to give us some money and although my figures may be off, I think we decided that we would give the Board money through our fund raising efforts. The Board said that if we gave them $10,000, (of course, some of that would be from Ontario), we would get a playground that would cost $20 - $30,000. We decided that we would raise enough money to give the Board $15 - $20,000, as we wanted a larger playground with better equipment and that’s what happened. I hope the playground is still there….I don’t know.
You also got involved with the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre. Tell me how that happened.
I think that may have come about because I had met Mary Lewis or Peggy Edwards but whichever one it was, I was invited to attend a board meeting at the Jane Finch Centre. I did and I thoroughly enjoyed it because what I saw there was women from the community having a say about building their community – saying what they wanted to see, the type of programs they wanted and I think one visit was enough for me to say that I wanted to be involved. I then became a member of the board and attended meetings. At the same time that I was on the Board, I did not forget the community in which I lived. I have already talked about the programs in the schools but I wanted activities in the entire community which included the Firgrove community centre. With help from the Jane Finch Centre and the involvement of Parks and Recreation, we did get some activities in the community centre.
I can talk in terms of my giving time, but I also have to talk about what I got out of my involvement. I remember quite clearly being invited to a conference with all these professors and experts coming from the United States, to find out about what was so unique about the Jane Finch Centre. Although I had some education and involvement in the workforce, I felt that I wouldn’t be able to participate in a conference with experts and professors. I was severely rebuked by my colleagues for thinking so little of myself and my involvement. With their encouragement, I attended the conference because I remember, it may have been Mary Lewis who told me – “all you have to do is go to the conference and say all the things you have been saying in the meetings here”. And, that’s what I did. So, that is what I mean about my getting a lot out of my participation.
My involvement also became entwined with what became my paid employment. One of the persons who got me involved in the community is the person who is interviewing me (Wanda). Wanda decided that she was going to help the YWCA to find people to attend this Life Skills group at 5 Needle Firway and then there she was knocking on my door. Nancy Pridham, the group facilitator, had come before and I said yes I would come to the group but I didn’t go. Don’t forget that in the beginning, I said that I came to live in the community with the false stereo-typical view that people have of Ontario Housing residents, so I didn’t want to participate; I didn’t want to be involved with “those” people. Anyhow, I told Nancy Pridham that I would attend – I didn’t attend and then one morning, there was Wanda rapping on my door and she said all the right things. Some of the things which she said that made me decide to become more involved were: “well, if you come to the program and Ralston and Garreth get involved in the childcare, it will really help them get ready for school”; “they will learn” and all the wonderful things they would learn and that’s what persuaded me.
It’s funny that Nancy Pridham told me some time later that although I came to the program, she observed that my chair was never in the circle. It was always outside the circle, just slightly outside. I found that interesting – I wasn’t aware of that but she observed it. I participated because I was learning, I was enjoying it although I could hear my son screaming in the day care but the group was fun. Nancy then suggested to me that instead of just participating in the Life Skills group, and given the experience I’ve had in the past, why not join a Life Skills class where I would learn to become a Life Skills Coach. I thought….hmmmm – but I don’t think that I signed up right away; I became her assistant in the Life Skills program that she facilitated at the Shoreham school location. I did whatever it was that I had to do there and sometimes it might have been just preparing the refreshments but I continued to learn. I finally signed up to become a Life Skills Coach.
When I graduated from that course, I decided that I would go back to my own community and work with the women there. We set up a Women’s Group at 5 Needle Firway and I learned then that I was good at outreach because we had a fairly large group. This is beside the point but one of the things I discovered or one person I met when I was doing the outreach was a woman who went to school with me in Jamaica – Gloria Brown. Not only did she become a participant in the group but I renewed that friendship and that friendship has lasted up to now.
The group that I established at 5 Needle Firway – (I don’t think I need to be modest) was very, very successful. I don’t know who told the YWCA about this group but I was approached by a staff from the Y and asked if I would continue facilitating that group, as a YWCA volunteer because they wanted it to become part of what the Y had, which was “outreach to West Indian women”. Most of the women were from the West Indian community. That is how the YWCA program came into 5 Needle Firway. All the things I have mentioned about 5 Needle Firway and my involvements with other activities did not interfere with my involvement with the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre, because that is one Centre that I still believe in the work that they do. I believe in the fact that they empowered women and I was one of those women that they empowered. While I was facilitating that group at 5 Needle Firway, I was offered a part-time job at the Driftwood Community Centre with a program called Black Creek Venture Group. I don’t remember what my duties were, I just know that I was working and was being paid. The program was facilitated by a fantastic woman – Lenore Suddes. She was a dynamic woman. Lenore lived at 35 Tobermory; founded Black Creek Venture Group and was on the founding Board of the Youth Clinical Services. If I needed any encouragement or anyone to become my mentor, she was, because she was so pleased when she was told about things going on in parts of the community. Anyhow, I worked with her for a little while and then I was – I’m having a little difficulty with the sequence of my activities in the community but I remember after working with Black Creek Venture Group, I was asked to be part of a program at Firgrove Public School. It was a project that OISE wanted to run in Firgrove School. I understand that they got the Board’s approval and I became, at the time, an Outreach Worker – you know all those fancy titles, but I’ll describe what the project was.
As a staff person, I worked half-day in the school with kindergarten children and the other half day was spent visiting parents in their homes. I’ll give you an example of what we did. If the parent of a kindergarten child believed her child should be able to print his or her name, regardless of what the child was doing in school, I had to come up with ways of showing that parent how she could help her child print his or her name. It wasn’t just what the mother was able to do with the child but the thinking behind the program was that it would encourage interaction between the child and the parent. That was really the goal – to get the parents to interact with their children and do different things and it was successful. I just want to repeat myself by saying that while I was doing all this; I was still at the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre. One of my concerns which I shared there was the fact that although there were all these programs being offered out of Firgrove School; during the summer, there was nothing for the children to do. That’s when I was told to approach Parks and Recreation. Mary Lewis also helped me to write a proposal because that particular year was the Year of the Child. We got some funding and set up what we called our Tiny Tot program. There was no financial cost to parents but they had to contribute in different ways. For example, parents were asked to be responsible for washing the aprons that the children wore; donating towards the refreshments or if they could afford it they could provide crayons and so on. Although we had some money from the grant, we didn’t have much. We were not able to use the teacher’s equipment and supplies and all we got from the Board was access to the school. The program was very successful and we were asked to expand the Tiny Tot program to Yorkwoods School so that following summer, we had two programs running.
Do you remember what the bigger issues were that the Jane Finch community faced back then?
One of the things was lack of services in the community and yes…I talk about all the things that were happening in the Firgrove community but it wasn’t happening all across the Jane Finch community. Although our young people may not have been getting into negative things, at that time, we wanted them to have activities as prevention. And that’s why we wanted Parks and Recreation to set up programs across the Jane Finch community.
We felt that the politicians were not interested in the Jane Finch community. We also felt that the Board of Education was not doing as much as we thought they should be doing; not just in Firgrove but in our schools. I’ll just back up a bit and tell you why I say that. I personally and parents who were in the parent teacher association, as it is now called, were tired of hearing that the parents were just not interested. We carried out an experiment, I think it was at the Driftwood Public School where we begged and besieged and finally got the principal to agree to have a Parent Night “outside” the school. We facilitated it at the 15 Tobermory apartments; because parents had to work; they came home late and they didn’t have time to go to parent teachers meetings at the school. We (parents) from Firgrove School were there so that as a parent came into the Tobermory building, we’d ask if they had a child at Driftwood School and if they said yes, we directed them to speak with a teacher. We didn’t care if it was the child’s teacher or not.
That’s what I mean about the Board – they weren’t prepared to look outside the box. As parents, we felt that for good things to happen in our community, those were the sort of things that had to be done – “to look outside of the box”.
I felt we were ignored. By then, the Jane Finch community had gotten a label. The moment they heard about the Jane Finch community, all they could think about were negative things. As someone who lived in the community, with children at varying ages, that was not my experience. Every time I talk about it, I talk about it with a little bit of anger because it’s unfair. I think it’s that labelling that prevented more good things from happening in the Jane Finch community.
What was the biggest challenge facing the community?
I think that the lack of resources was one of the biggest problems because my experience was that if resources were there, community people would respond. For example, since I was mostly involved with programs for young people, if there was a program set-up, we the community residents were prepared to facilitate programs outside of the usual time. You know, staff in the community worked 9:00 – 4:30; we were prepared to facilitate the programs after 4.30. If it were a parenting group, we were prepared to facilitate it when the parents were available. When I speak about lack of resources, even if resources were made available, we were expected to access those resources within that time-frame of 9:00 – 4:30.
What were you most proud of?
I think my proudest was my involvement in the Firgrove community. Whatever successes our children had, that made me very proud. And I continue, not just being proud at that time, but I continue to be very proud of the work that the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre did, is doing and I know will continue to do.
What was challenging for you at that time?
What was challenging was being involved in the community and at the same time, ensuring that my children were not deprived of anything and by that I mean, being involved in the school at night. What happened when my children came home with their homework? I’ll give you a quick example of how I facilitated that as there were certain things we had at the school after hours. I took my teenagers with me. Maybe that’s why my children, who are adults now, believe that they must be involved in the schools. One of the things I distinctly remember doing so that I would not miss out on what was required of me, as a parent, at the school was: I had a cardboard box by my door and when the children came home in the evenings, anything that came from the school had to be put in that box. So when the children were sleeping that was when I read and dealt with what the teachers wanted from me. I also became friends with my immediate neighbour who became involved in the school and she also helped out with child-minding of my younger sons.
I had flip-chart paper on my walls and it was for my “to-do” list and my children “to-do” list because to be involved in the community I had to have some organization. That was my “to-do” because we didn’t have “post-it” at that time, so I used flip-chart paper. Again, I was working and I don’t want to appear that I was super-woman but there were times when I felt that I was doing so much. For example, one of the programs that the Jane/Finch Centre encouraged me to be involved in was a program that Elspeth Heyworth instituted at York University for us community people. The program was called the Bridging Course for Women and it was for women who may have been afraid or felt that they were not qualified to attend University. Those of us who attended enjoyed the experience and three of us completed the course with very high marks. It was challenging being involved and caring for my family but I did it. And, I would do it again.
Today the community is really diverse. What was the make-up of the community when you were living there?
There were a large percentage of people from the West Indies. There were Spanish-speaking people and I’m not sure what other cultures. I don’t think it was as diverse as it is now; but it was diverse. Wanda, you might not ask this question but I just want to say that I do not believe when politicians or others blame certain negative things that happen in a community, simply on the fact that people were/are diverse. Many of the people that I visited in their homes did not speak English; but we communicated. We used…I didn’t know sign language but we used sign language and believe me, we wrote little words on paper because there were very few people coming from certain countries that did not know a little bit of English. So, diversity was not the main reason for conflict in a community. I think that it was/is mainly lack of resources.
What is your fondest memory of being in the Jane Finch community?
There are so many….it’s really hard to think or identify one but having moved out of the community and by moving I don’t mean…..my heart remains in the Jane Finch community and it’s still there! But having moved from that home to another home, I think what I’ve gotten out of the Jane Finch community is friendship; friendships that have continued to this day. I have friends in the Firgrove community; in the Driftwood community and yes, we may not speak with each other very often but at least at Christmas we hear from each other. Even from the non-Christians, we share greetings at Christmas time.
Any other comments?
I have lived in Canada since 1968. I live in the Mississauga community at the moment - fortunate to have a home there. I’m aware of all the negative things that are said about the Jane Finch community. I am glad that I lived there; I have memories of my time there and I wish those things were happening in the community in which I now live. It was one of the best places I have ever lived and many of the skills that I now have, I learned, gained from my involvements in that community.