The Pocket’s Tiny Forest is Bigger Than It Looks
Image credits: Singkham, Jan Jennings, Pixabay
by Allison Beaumont
My favourite jeans—medium-wash and wide-cut with two inches of fabric rolled up and safety-pinned “just until I get them hemmed”—have deep front pockets. As they are a rarity in women’s bottoms, I’ve committed myself to using them. They carry my trusty lip balm, rings discarded while I wash my hands, and the change from my café order with such ease that I often forget they’re there and send them through the wash. It’s a blessing and a curse.
What I have yet to make use of, though, is the tiny pocket tucked inside the larger one on my right hip.
I think about this in a way that I recognize is painfully on the nose while I walk through a neighbourhood off Danforth Avenue called the Pocket. In my defence, the community got its name two decades ago from the shape made by its boundaries—Danforth, Jones, Greenwood, and the southern railroad tracks—and its near inaccessibility from three sides. I’m not the first person to have this thought here, and I doubt I’ll be the last. The mind cannot always think so abstractly.
Also like a pocket, the streets of colourful family homes built a brick’s length apart have a cozy feel to them, and tend to keep a hold on those who move in.
“It’s a homey vibe—I don’t know how else to say it,” said Malinda Francis, Chair of the Pocket Community Association (PCA). Francis’s family moved to the Pocket in 1986 and are one of many who came and never left. She believes Pocket residents are in for the long haul, not only because it is uniquely quiet for a neighbourhood so close to Danforth Avenue, but because of the community they’ve created. “People know each other in the Pocket,” said Francis, “probably because we have community events.”
One such event is what inspired my visit.
“We do what we can,” Francis said. “[We’re trying] to create a way where people don’t feel overwhelmed. I think a lot of people shy away because their lives are so busy.”
I came for the Tiny Forest, a partnered project between the PCA and several conservation organizations in Toronto. It was planted in the TTC Oakvale Green Space by community volunteers in the fall of 2023, and is one of many PCA environmental programs designed to better the Pocket and Toronto at large.
Tiny forests are a Japanese environmental restoration method. With 100 square metres of native species planted together, they provide cleaner air, improved habitats for biodiversity and wildlife, and reduced heat in urban spaces. While it will take time for these environmental changes to show, the social good of the initiative began on the day it was planted, with the people who planted it.
How we perceive our world translates to how we socialize within it. Recent studies on climate anxiety and urban greenness show that when Canadians feel worried about the future of our climate, we’re more likely to feel lonely, and socially isolated. This correlation is part of why the PCA organizes projects such as the Tiny Forest.
“[Community involvement] battles isolation that people feel, especially in our fast-paced world,” Francis said. The isolation she speaks of is no small matter: the Toronto Foundation’s 2023 report, “The Power of Us,” found that thirty-seven per cent of Torontonians feel lonely at least three days a week. This figure is higher than that of any other Canadian city, and is linked to the economic and environmental challenges that have hit Toronto hard in the past few years. The Pocket is no exception; the neighbourhood’s cost of living and average monthly temperatures are increasing steadily. On top of their events coordinator moving away, this has made it harder for the PCA to drive participation.
“We do what we can,” Francis said. “[We’re trying] to create a way where people don’t feel overwhelmed. I think a lot of people shy away because their lives are so busy.”
Even in a close-knit neighbourhood like the Pocket, energy spent trying to get by, keep up with the news, and navigate the changing world means less energy for other people. It is easier to go inside and decompress after work than it is to chat with neighbours in the driveway for ten minutes—so much easier that it’s possible to live next to them for years without learning their names. We can shove ourselves so deep into a pocket that we forget we’re in one.
It is no wonder we’re in constant search of rest. Nor that it, for many, does not involve socializing. That is partly why I’m walking through the Pocket alone, and precisely what drew me to the Tiny Forest in the first place.
The Pocket’s Tiny Forest is as much about helping each other as it is about helping the environment. The relationship between the quality of our climate and the quality of our social lives means that any time, money, and energy invested into protecting the spaces we live in will benefit not only our mental and physical well-being, but the future of our communities as well. Every volunteer who joined in to plant the Tiny Forest, as well as every neighbour who couldn’t, is better off for its existence.
When I reach the small plot of land that brought me all this way, I see that tiny is an accurate description. It is no larger than the average urban backyard, but there are trees, shrubs, and flowers. I imagine how they’d look if it wasn’t late January.
That corner of the TTC Oakvale Green Space, filled with a collection of species that might never have been put together, and tucked so deep into the Pocket that you’d never find a use for it if you weren’t looking, is a symbol of a community’s commitment to each other.
There is a fence that keeps people out of the forest, but there are actually many people inside. There are elderly folks, residents of several decades, who have neighbours to check in on them. Children running and laughing around the Eco Fun Fair and Pumpkin Parades hosted each year by the PCA project committees. Tired, working adults using their free Saturday afternoon to plant a tiny forest that will make their community better.
It’s easy to get lost in these busy times, but there is something about a strong community that Francis put best: “You have the hub of Danforth, but then you have a little, well, pocket.”
