We’re happy to have been a part of the successful fundraising efforts for this years Cabbagetown Nuit Blanche, and we’re really exited to be running two community arts projects in the ‘Zone’, both supporting causes.

Our first project is an interactive photo booth showcasing the skills of Toronto freelance photographer Rannie Turingan. Attaque des Araignées! (Attack of the Spiders) "Un film en noir et blanc de Rannie Turringan pour War Child". We’re holding a pay what you can casting call in support of War Child Canada as part of Cabbagetown’s Nuit Blanche Celebration. Bring props, and add your scene! Located at Théâtre Fair Trade Jewellery Co. 523 Rue Parliament Toronto 7:00pm until Je ne sais pas. ‘Actors’ will be photographed in black and white with/without thought or speech bubbles to add dialogue to the scene. Photos will be placed in story board format in our front windows where people will have the opportunity to change the order and help create a ’scary’ story (aroooooo) for the evening. The final ordering of photos will be compiled and uploaded on the web where they can be downloaded & shared.

Or second project is Arachnattack! an experiment for a local collaboration project between businesses and residents. This year, our neighbor Rama Caritey, Dean from ‘The Lamp Cage‘, and our favorite local Simon Rollason (who helped with equipment and beverages from Great Lakes Brewery) will work all night create giant spider lanterns inspired by Vancouver’s "Illuminaries Festival" & Elora’s "Twilight Zoo" We’re gonna get your hands dirty and we hope you’ll join us as we rally behind community ‘creation’. Once completed, the lanterns will be installed on the roofs & sides of retail buildings along Parliament St. the following week and stay up until Hallow’s Eve! Proceeds from the decorations will go directly to a local community group.

Participants will be able to help build/finish the spiders we have been working on by:

- Making faces for the spiders

- Build out the legs using empty beer cans, canvas, cheese cloth, tissue paper & glue

- Installing lights

- Enjoying the process

We hope you can join us tonight and while you’re here check out the other incredibly cool projects in our zone @ http://www.cabbagetownnuitblanche.ca

Special thanks for the poster go to Al Morton who continues to amaze. We love Al.

HoHOTo (aka HoHoTo) was another massive success raising $10,500+ on a very HOT night for the Daily Bread food bank in Toronto.  (On top of the $25,000 in December ‘08 that’s not to bad)

Everyone who make these events a success, especially the volunteers – Thank you!

*Thanks to @hyfen for the great photos

But it’s not over! Tonight the team will be auctioning off various items for one last push and we’re hosting the goods, and selling more ’swag’.  Not to mention we’re maintaining a year round drop off/delivery point if your visiting please consider bringing a non perishable food item with you.

For details on how to participate please visit:  http://hohoto.ca/2009/08/20/the-hohoto-hangover-swag-auction/

AUCTION SESSION ONE: 7:00 – 8:00pm

Lot #1 -  Four tickets for August 21st performance of Falemalama
Sponsor: Harbourfront Centre (part of Harbourfront’s Planet IndigenUs festival)

Lot #2 – Autographed Lee Stempniak Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Stick
Sponsor: Direct Energy

Lot #3 – Hosting & Geektastic Book Bundle
Sponsors: Wiley Canada and Hover.com
Includes:

• Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets
• Facebook Application Development
• Mac OS X Leopard Portable Genius
• PLUS: Gift certificate for one year hosting package from Hover.com

Lot #4 – Love your iPhone/iPod Bundle
Sponsors: iLounge.com & Wiley Canada
Includes:

• Griffin PowerJolt SE – charger for iPod/iPhone
• iPhone 3G Portable Genius book
• iPhone Fully Loaded book
• EcoRunner case for iPod Nano

AUCTION SESSION TWO: 8:30 – 9:30pm

Lot #5 – Gift Certificate from Cake or Death - $500 value!
Sponsor: Cake or Death (well, duh)

Lot #6 – Get Your Fit On Book Bundle
Sponsor: McGraw-Hill
Includes:

• How Lance Does It: Put the Success Formula of a Champion into Everything You Do
• Prescription Alternatives
• Building Bone Vitality

Lot #7 – Movies & Swag Pack
Sponsors: Cineplex (via @digallo) & Rightsleeve
Includes:

• Set of Cineplex gift certificates, good for any 2 Cineplex movies plus popcorn
• Complete hoHOTo merchandise kit

• Gift certificate for one year hosting package from Hover.com
• Complete hoHOTo merchandise kit

• Good Drinks for Bad Days
• Travel Therapy

FTJ’s Store Hours for pick-up and donation:

Mon – Tue By Appointment Only
Wed – Fri 12pm – 7:30pm
Sat – Sun 10am – 6pm

The Fair Trade Jewellery Co.
Atelier: 523 Parliament St.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4X1P3

p: 1-647-430-8741
p: 1-866-95-FTJCO (1-866-953-8526)

And for those interested here’s a little plug for my friends at St. James Cathedral as they’re raising a whopping $3M for the Cathedral Center. The center will continue to provide (incredible) drop-in and community outreach programmes, a facilities upgrade is definitely needed to maintain/support these service(s).

It was an incredible week, our ‘Trash Man’ program for War Child Canada achieved some incredible awareness and raised almost *$2000 in 7 (grueling days). We want to thank everyone who blogged, tweeted, called, emailed, donated their support for the initiative. We are overwhelmed by the response and would especially like to thank Simon Rollason of Great Lakes Brewery for the use of his personal & company vehicles, Zip Car for crediting us for the use of theirs. CBC, Toronto Star, CityTV & CTS  for such positive media coverage, and War Child Canada for allowing us to undertake such an ambitious (& audacious) fundraiser.

To ‘Team Trashman’  Asaka Yamashita, Michael Penney, Toby Proctor, Jaime Woo who joined me on this adventure: you are incredible people, who have my love and appreciation.

"I’d like to thank Ryan and his #Trashman crew for the most extraordinary effort over the last few weeks. You are all War Child heroes, albeit slightly smelly ones. Now go get some sleep!"
 - James Topham, Director of Communications, War Child Canada

The Reason: Sadly the Ontario Environmental Protection Act forbids us from continuing to collect our neighbours trash during the Toronto garbage strike without a $500 certificate of registration with the Ministry. We have decided that $500 was unjustified any money raised from our work should go directly to War Child not a ‘pay to play’ certificate.

We wish both the City & Local 416 well in their negotiations, we hope our light hearted approach took a little pressure off the process by providing a positive alternative during such uncertain and frustrating times.

Please remember http://warchild.ca/trashman link is still open we encourage you to consider War Child and make a donation, every dollar counts.

With Love, Ryan Taylor

*Still counting the beans

With thanks to Sam, James, Alyson & all the War Child Canada staff for their encouragement and support of this project.

OK so it’s a quote totally out of context, but now that we’ve got the Commodores in your head we’re hoping to make things ‘all right’ by doing something positive during  the Toronto ‘Garbage Strike.’ From 11:59 PM this Friday (the 27th) until 2 PM on Saturday (the 28th)   3am Saturday the 28th until the end of the strike the FTJCo is mobile on the night shift providing garbage removal for FREE after $10 a bag or 6 for $50 donation is made directly to War Child Canada. By providing this FREE service we limit illegal dumping, keep Toronto clean, get to share some smiles, connect with our community through an awesome cause, and by no means break any provincial Environmental Law This initiative supports both the City of Toronto and the union Local 416 in their ongoing negotiations and we trust that they will see this initiative as a positive program that supports the law and respects the workers .

Email from the Ministry of the Environment regarding legality of this Fund Raiser:

"ENV1283MC-2009-3124

Mr. Ryan Taylor
E-mail: ryan@ftjco.com

The "fund raiser" described in your message would likely fall under
the mandate of the Ontario Ministry of Revenue.  You can visit the web
link at http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/english/publications/client/data.html?sid=4.

We hope you find this helpful."

Updated: We’ve decided to extend the program to get the message out and allow communities time to coordinate, thanks for the tremendous support!

Monday 4am – 7am, Wednesday 4am – 7am, Friday 4am – 7am

Thanks for the support! Trashman is now finished Special Thanks to: Jaime Woo Michael Penney Asaka Yamashita Toby Proctor

In The Media

What the press are saying: Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC News @6 [Video] , CityTV News @6 & Breakfast Television

What the Twitterverse is saying:  http://bit.ly/iPTmo

Sponsors & Partners

Thanks to:  Simon Rollason & Great Lakes Brewery for the use of their vehicles as mini garbage trucks!

The CabbageTown BIA is now supporting the initiative! [More]

"the BIA has hired Matt “Sweeps” McAllister to clean our streets twice a week for the duration of the strike. Sweeps started on Friday and he’s been attacking the big problem areas first. He’ll soon be on top of the worst and then he’ll be able to do smaller litter on the walks and near the curb.

When Sweeps has filled his bags, they’ll be taken to the dump by Ryan Taylor from Fair Trade Jewellers, the new store that’s currently under construction at 523 Parliament. Ryan is doing this as a contribution to the international charity, War Child. All of the fees that he’s collecting will be used to help child soldiers.." 

Posters

Would you like to show support War Child’s ‘Trashman’ in your neighborhood? Please click on an image to download and print these posters (size 8.5/11 in Adobe PDF format):

 *Special thanks to Jason Murphy for the poster graphic and concept

Signing up is a simple process but first some tips on reducing your waste & getting the most from your pick-up (from us or the City)

a. Remove all metal, plastic, and paper including shopping bags and styrofoam. Washing food/beverage containers allows you to store maximum waste without odor or sanitary issues.

b. From the City of Toronto website: "When bringing materials for disposal, please combine Green Bin materials with other garbage, place in securely tied, double plastic bags and bring to any of the drop-off locations". Which means we’ll pick up diapers! …Ugh Yay!  Please try to store out of sunlight & remove all foods and liquids & consider composting in your yard / organizing a community collection.

This suspension of service is a great opportunity for families to discover and implement new ideas for reducing, recycling and waste management, to be applied year round. Here are a couple fantastic ‘green’ resources: http://www.treehugger.com | http://www.davidsuzuki.org | have a suggestion? Please feel free to add your resource in comments & we’ll update.

I’m Sold! Sign me up!

Pick-up area: We are limiting our 1st effort to within Toronto ‘proper’ large donations will obviously expand the coverage area

Pick-up times are based on qty and amount donated please be patient with us and complete the form below with details on where you have placed your bags.  If you’re on twitter consider sending  a tweet to @ryantaylor with #trashman #warchild in the message and help spread the word.

Donations are made by credit card directly to War Child Canada. They set us up a special page here: http://www.warchild.ca/trashman once complete please update the form below with pick-up details. – Please donate based on qty of bags i.e. $10 a bag or 6 for $50. Additional donations are always welcome and very much appreciated.

If you can’t pay by credit card we reluctantly accept cash & cheque please make note on the form below.

But wait there’s more!

Toronto’s Twitterati can enjoy a special treat, for just $20 a bag premium you can enjoy watching my friend, the impeccably dressed Duarte Da Silva a.k.a @modernmod squeamishly carry your trash away while you enjoy your favorite beverage (may we suggest a nice chianti) from the comfort of your porch, lawn or stoop. Oh! Did we mention we were filming this?

Registration Closed.

We’re All Done. Thanks everyone for their support! #trashman 4 #warchild is getting some sleep Zzzz.

Despite the project ending, please consider supporting War Child by donating here http://www.warchild.ca/trashman

City of Toronto LEGAL drop off stations:

View 2009 Garbage Drop-off Locations in a larger map

The Fair Trade Jewellery Company will be unveiling the Cabbagetown atelier on August 1st  2009.

The 950 square feet atelier on Parliament Street in Toronto, under construction since January, has been a labour of love.  FTJCo founder Ryan Taylor with a talented team of designers worked to create an inviting, modern space for guests and to showcase the company’s sophisticated jewellery collection. As part of the design, there was an environmental responsibility to build the atelier with as much recovered material from the existing property as possible. From wood to piping to nails, every component was considered for reuse. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at the atelier, however, as the old elements complement new elements like the stunning tile wall shown above.

The construction of the atelier was truly a community effort. Ryan has been an active member in the tech community in Toronto and has been sharing the FTJCo’s journey through his Twitter account. To his surprise, upon hearing about his hands-on efforts working on the atelier, friends from the community offered to lend a hand, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes over a weekend. (You can catch the atelier in progress at reno.ftjco.com.) Grateful for everyone who helped haul in material, sanded, scrubbed, or painted, Ryan likens the communal effort as a throwback to "an old-fashioned barn-raising." What’s amazing is that, in this day and age, how often do you hear of people voluntary pitching in to help someone literally build their passion and livelihood? (And wouldn’t it be great to hear more of it?)

We’ll be posting pictures from the renovation and the atelier in the near future. The wait is nearly over for your chance to check it out for yourself. Make sure to sign-up for our launch party and to stay updated on the latest news.