It was standing room only at the Burdock for both shows of the Build a Better Bloor Dufferin fundraiser on March 27.

A noisy community gathering filled the concert room at the Burdock on Bloor St. for both the first and second shows. Friends greeted neighbours not seen since before the winter’s hibernation 

At both shows the crowd enthusiastically greeted some very local—and accomplished—members of our community. Many shared memories of why they live in our west end and why are fighting to preserve our way of life.

Singer/songwriter Lori Cullen told the audience about the first time she saw Dufferin Grove Park. She was cycling from her then-apartment to a shop in Dufferin Mall. When she entered our park, she knew she was home. “It was paradise. There were dirty kids running all over the place,” she said to appreciative laughs.

Ansley Simpson a Toronto-based Anishinaabe singer-songwriter and Best New artist at the 2018 Indigenous Music Awards said she tries to keep in touch with her heritage by harvesting healing herbs in the park but added: “And I’m not going to tell you where they are.”

Andrea Nann movingly quoted Dionne Brand, a Toronto poet, whose words are memorialized on a bench at the corner of Bloor and Dufferin: 

“Walking here, I turned my face to you and said, 

how on earth will we live, who will dance with us,

will there be music?”

— Joe McAllister