Most of us have heard the phrase “Buy Local.” It’s a feel-good reminder that shopping close to home supports small businesses and keeps money circulating in our community. And in Convent Glen – Orléans Wood, we’re lucky to have a growing number of independent shops, markets, and services that benefit when we choose to spend locally.
But I want to challenge us to go one step further. If “Buy Local” is about where we spend our money, “Live Local” is about where we spend our lives.
Living Local means leaning into the everyday opportunities right here in our neighborhood—to walk more, connect more, and participate more. It’s choosing to stroll the pathways along the Ottawa River rather than hopping in the car for entertainment. It’s attending a yoga class at the community centre, joining a walking group, or striking up a conversation at the Jeanne d’Arc bus stop.
Why does this matter? Because being present where we live helps us forge the kinds of relationships that turn a neighbourhood into a community.
When we live local, we start recognizing the familiar faces at the grocery store, the dog walkers on the trails, and the folks tending the Little Free Libraries sprinkled through our streets. These chance encounters and daily routines build social trust—and that’s the secret sauce of a connected, resilient community.
Urban studies have long shown that neighbourhoods where people walk, linger, and know each other are not only more vibrant, but also healthier and safer. Communities with stronger social bonds are better at weathering crises, more civically engaged, and even experience better mental health. That’s not a coincidence—it’s a reflection of the power of proximity.
Many parts of Convent Glen–Orléans Wood are perfectly positioned to live this out (and others are ripe for active transportation improvements to make this easier). We’ve got a great park system, access to natural beauty, local organizations, and a rich mix of longtime residents and new arrivals. When we show up for local events—like park cleanups, family movie nights, or the spring community yard sale—we’re doing more than having fun. We’re stitching ourselves into the fabric of something bigger.
So this spring and summer, I invite you to live a little more local. Say hello to a neighbor you haven’t met yet. Drop by a community event. Explore a new part of the neighborhood on foot or bike. Volunteer your time or your talents. Because every small act of local engagement builds the kind of community we all want to live in.
Let’s make Convent Glen–Orléans Wood not just a place we live—but a place we truly belong.
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Good afternoon,
Live local has been happening in our area for years. People walk for pleasure either on the beautiful bike path by the river, walk their dogs around the block, walk to the local grocery store/beer store/eateries (weather permitting) and bicycle and take OC Transpo to travel quite often. Petrie Island is always busy with people swimming, canoeing, photographing wildlife, enjoying the nature trails. Adding better bicycle paths would be an asset to make things easier, and educating bicycle’s on rules of the road (they need to stop at stop signs, and stay to the side and look where they are going) would be beneficial to everyone.
Live locally is not a new concept here in Convent Glen. Many people say hello as they pass neighbours on the sidewalk, stop to pet their dog as they pass. They visit local garage sales just for something to do, they give away items to neighbours who are in need or to keep them out of landfill. Some grow gardens and give some veggies to their neighbours. There is a lot going on if you just look and listen. Just because you don’t see it happening, it does not mean it does not exist. People do acts of kindness and do local without showing it off on a daily basis.
After people give to their own community, they are allowed to visit other communities for other reasons if they so choose. Why have boundaries? They can car pool, take OC Transpo. Getting out of our own space is like taking a short holiday, it does wonders for our mental health.
We’ve visited your Facebook community page, and it’s been noticed and commented on by various members that voices are silenced. It seems if a member voices a concern, or they oppose the status quo, their comment or post is taken down. Other neighbours call them NIMBY’s if they oppose the rapid growth and/or changes that are happening. Admin’s (association members) and Moderators are just as bad as they scold people for questioning their decisions, and then ban and publicly shame. Even private message with rude comments before banning them. This not only adds division in our community, but it adds stress to mental health. Mental health is invisible and you may doing a great deal of harm. You shame people without question, without notice and humiliate without knowing true facts or their stories. True leaders would not seek vengeance on their neighbours, or belittle them, or spread rumours or false stories. 8000+ members on a public forum and the lack of respect is not a safe space,
Please remember you are a group of un-elected community volunteers. We thank you for the events you share, but remember, we all live here and we all have different stories, difference experience and difference views and each person’s perspective must be respected and not shamed.
We thank our elected official for everything she does. She responds to her emails!
Thank you,
An anonymous group of neighbours (to protect our mental health)
Author
Hi Anonymous Group of Neighbours,
As the author of the Live Local piece, I don’t have any way to communicate with you directly other than via this comment thread, so here goes. I hope you see this and choose to open a dialogue.
A number of us on the board of the community association have said for a while that the Facebook group is not a healthy place and not really representative of anything we’re trying to accomplish, it is probably even detrimental to that goal (this message from you solidifies that thought to me). A handful of volunteers moderate the group, and while they are doing their best, spending a lot of time looking at the most controversial things 8000+ people choose to post publicly online (we get a LOT of user reports of rule violations) is not great for mental health either.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply in my piece that nobody in Convent Glen is currently Living Local, I’ve done it everywhere I’ve lived my whole life, and it’s not a new concept. I also didn’t say that you are not allowed to go anywhere or do anything else, that would be a bizarre restriction on freedom. In fact, I would make the argument that the lifestyle you’re choosing to lead, participating deeply in our community and maintaining strong connections with friends, family and others in multiple places, is something of an inspiration! My encouraging people who may have never tried leaning into this kind of lifestyle to give it a try isn’t meant to be viewed as an affront to those who already do it.
Anyhow, I don’t feel it is particularly useful to debate this from the privacy of a keyboard (I have given my reasons for getting involved in the CA: https://cgow.ca/who-i-am-and-why-im-here-meet-rob), I would love to meet with you and talk about this over a drink or something. It seems like we (your group and I) have a lot in common, and you sound like incredible and upstanding members of the community who are perhaps stuck feeling (like I am) that a Facebook group is not a particularly productive medium for community engagement. I can’t speak to having seen any rude messages exchanged or posts being silenced for having a differing opinion (the ‘you’ you speak of in describing the group admin and moderators is a small team of volunteers that effectively doesn’t include me, as the author of this post, at all), but I also try to spend as little time on Facebook as possible because there is so much negativity and sensationalizing in general on the platform.
Anyhow, if you still don’t feel comfortable sending me a private message ([email protected], I welcome an email), I would encourage you to respond here. I would love to have the chance to engage with you meaningfully to get your help sharing the good word about our shared community and the possibility of Living Local, something I would love to do more than I am currently, living off Vineyard with very little in reasonable walking distance (thankfully bikes exist!).
I appreciate your feedback, and I am sorry your experience in the Facebook group has soured you to the community association as a whole, since the work of the community association and the moderation and administration of the Facebook group have effectively zero overlap. We are doing our best to make this a nice place to live and it sounds as though you are as well.
Rob
Thank you for your response. Much appreciated.
Trust us when we tell you that silencing, believing lies, shaming people not deserving of it, rude private messages from the admins (members of your association) and moderators have been happening and it’s most unfortunate. Voices who aren’t in agreement are also accused of being trolls or trouble makers.
We would like the association to take accountabilty for their behaviour on the Facebook platform and to realize the damage they have been creating for our community.
At this time we prefer not to meet in person. It is our hope however, that this facebook group closes as it would be best solution for our community and for everyone’s mental health.
Perhaps create more awareness for mental health as a new focus.
We thank you for listening.
Author
Hello A,
I would prefer to discuss this in a manner that doesn’t spill paint all over the community association website, including on this piece I’m quite proud of. Honestly, I am getting the feeling you describe here in reading your comments, including feeling like I (as the editor of the website) am being bullied and treated poorly.
I truly think an actual face to face meeting is the best way to actually discuss what you’ve dealt with privately. Failing that, would you be willing to create an email address I can reach you at, so that I don’t have to have this conversation on a random page of our website, hoping you eventually visit again to see a reply and answer? I have no power whatsoever in this interaction, I can either ignore you or respond publicly, and each time I have to respond publicly to attacks that have no reason to be directed at me (like right now), my motivation to do it drops precipitously.
The topic of closing the Facebook group has come up many times in the ~6 months I’ve been a part of the CA, and I completely agree it brings out the worst in people and actively prevents important conversations from happening. I’ve written about this extensively in this exact context over the last few months here both directly and indirectly (https://cgow.ca/the-importance-of-community-involvement-beyond-social-media and https://cgow.ca/building-a-stronger-sense-of-community-why-it-matters).
I do think there are people who think they get value from the group existing, but I am not so sure they’re right. I don’t feel I have the authority to take that away from people. I’m brand new to that space, relatively speaking.
Please think about the options I’ve mentioned here (a meeting in person, or an anonymous email where I can actually reach you, failing that) to have an actual dialogue person to person (or people). I need to protect my own mental health here, and so I am going to be hiding (but not deleting) all but the newest of our interactions here, but I get notified when you post a comment.
Thank you. We are just trying to bring experiences to light, as so many in the community have felt bullied themselves with the facebook platform with no accountability for their actions (not you).
Our intention is not to bully, and your article is very well written. You seem like you care about our communuty immensely.
We will discuss the communication options you put forward.
We hope you understand.
Have a great weekend.