How I Found Community 30 Minutes Away From Home at Studio.89’s Summer Block Party
Hey there, welcome to Studio.89!
I’m so glad you made it to our Summer Block Party!
Come take a stroll with me through the lovely vendor market on our patio. The warmth of the sun seeps into our skin as we flow from table to table, taking our time smelling the candles and admiring the jewels of the hairpins glinting in the light. As we approach the doors, they magically open (with the help of a most courteous volunteer) and we’re drawn in to the even warmer and lively fair-trade youth-run non-profit cafe of Studio.89. The chords of a guitar accompanied with singing reaches our ears over the hum of happy conversations. We turn to see passionate singers singing nostalgic and upbeat summer tunes, a gallery displaying the art of local Mississauga artists, a table set up with crafting materials galore, a henna artist spreading creativity through intricate swirls and patterns, and kind youth volunteers offering lemonade and mushroom risotto balls.
This is only a glimpse into the Summer Block Party at Studio.89 on May 30th, 2026–an afternoon of bravery, introductions, and conversation-starters. It was also an afternoon of smiles, connection-building, and friendship-making. I had the pleasure of meeting people as soon as I stepped foot on the patio–such as the hardworking photographers, cafe workers, vendors, and volunteers. Once the party began, I really had the opportunity to get to know the diverse Mississauga community–artists of wonderfully different mediums, leaders of eco-friendly workshops, and lovers of perspective-changing books (which I’ve now added to my unending “to be read” list).
This is where spaces like Studio.89 are essential. Welcoming spaces that “empower youth to engage in social impact dialogues through art and culture” connects us with others who strive to create positive change. Powerful, changemaking ideas can be daunting tasks when they’re shouldered by one person. Studio.89 provides volunteers like my wonderful team and I with a platform to highlight social impact activities. It’s very encouraging to be surrounded by dedicated and friendly people–so much so that our ideas become actionable goals.
The Power of Our Community
As mentioned by our lovely Operations Manager, Aryanna, and Program Coordinator, Christina during their speeches, our “youth-run, fair trade café and community hub” empowered youth, provided leadership opportunities, encouraged collaboration with community partners, and have always advocated for humans, animals, and the planet.”
“Back in 2006, Youth Troopers for Global Awareness — YTGA — was born right here in this city through our founder, Zehra Abbas, her younger siblings and their friends as an organic, grassroots, youth-led non-profit.”
Aryanna, Operations Manager at Studio.89
As of 2014, when Studio.89 “launched our revenue generating arm, we’ve been a free physical community space for everyone advancing community good.” For example, “tackling trauma through the arts, using neuroscience principles to build empathy and fight hate, tackling senior isolation, opening doors for neurodivergent youth, newcomers, refugees, and any young person facing a barrier : social, economic, or otherwise.”
“Before COVID, in our old location, we were running over 650 events a year, multiple events a day, because we had full access to that unit, which really speaks to the demand in our community.
Today, we are at 250 events here as this space is only available when it is not in use as a sales centre in the evenings. Imagine what an incredible full-time community hub we could build here.”
Aryanna, Operations Manager at Studio.89
Through The Daniels Corporation, Studio.89 was able to reopen in our current location.
“The challenge before us is that Daniel’s Corporation is leaving this unit in a few months. If we want to preserve this community hub and expand it into a full-time arts and culture hub, we will need our community’s help.”
Aryanna, Operations Manager at Studio.89
Our community is strong and dedicated to positive change. There’s no doubt that we can do so much more with your help. We’re happy to have you!
How Can You Join?
(Information presented by our lovely Instagram team @studiooo89)
Become a Monthly Donor!
Studio.89 became a charity as Kind World Charity is officially becoming our parent organization. Get a charitable tax receipt when you donate $15 or more every month. Start today at studio.89.org/donate/
You’re donation will go towards tackling senior isolation, training neurodivergent youth with important job skills, and empowering newcomers, refugees and marginalized youth.
Youth in Action: Hanna R. Shares Insights from our Patio Sprouts Series
‘You have a right to healthy food systems:’ Studio.89 opens its Urban garden to the City of Mississauga
Food sovereignty is just an arm’s length away as Studio.89 opens its new vegetable and herb garden to its surrounding community. The non-profit café launched this urban agricultural initiative on May 23rd under the program name Patio Sprouts.
The concept behind Patio Sprouts took root in January—the café’s first attempt to tackle rising grocery prices and boost community engagement. The Social Impact Committee (SIC) led the charge—a volunteer youth group dedicated to developing initiatives that amplify sustainability and foster community. SIC has spearheaded several Studio.89 events, such as art showcases, park cleanups, and a Family Feud Fundraiser, where contestants were tested on issues regarding animal welfare, human rights, and the environment.
“We are showing community members that, yes, we might be struggling with our economy. But if we team up together and grow these things together, then we are able to reduce that stress [of grocery prices] at least slightly,” explained Operations Manager Aryanna Alikhan, who drafted the budget proposal to the City of Mississauga.
Patio Sprouts refers to the garden of basil, spinach, rosemary, pepper, and parsley that the SIC and high school co-op volunteers built and planted on Studio.89’s patio. The café encourages its community to come in and nurture its array of goods, connect with their neighbours, and/or share agricultural knowledge—with the promise that the garden is open for foraging.
“You have to put in that effort to take care of nature in order for nature’s benefits to take care of your body and your health,” Alikhan said, referring to the single requirement needed to pick from the café’s patio.
Alikhan also helped evolve Patio Sprouts into a series of monthly workshops, set to resume on June 14 with a beginner-friendly painting and planting session. Besides promoting community engagement and offering grocery alternatives to the surrounding area, the SIC hopes to teach café-goers about food sovereignty and encourage them to cultivate their own gardens.
“You have a right to healthy food systems, and the need to produce, distribute, and consume your food should be accessible and inclusive,” she said. “Everyone should also have access to a free community space and these programs that help develop them, personally and professionally. So, it goes hand-in-hand with food sovereignty, but also just being part of a community.”
Tea has always been my little ritual, my thing… a warm hug, a moment of comfort, a reason to pause. But now, when I take a sip, I think about the people behind the leaves, the hands that picked them, the lands they grew from. I think about sustainability, culture, and the stories steeped into every cup.
I recently attended the Toronto Tea Festival and to my surprise my placement at Studio.89 gave me a whole new perspective. As I happily wandered from booth to booth, sipping and savoring (and trust me, I did plenty of that). I found myself drawn into conversations about fair trade, ethical sourcing, and the impact of conscious consumerism.
Instead of just appreciating a good brew I wanted to know: Where, how, and who grew these leaves? Were they paid fairly? How does this tea honor tradition and sustainability?
Turns out, Studio.89 had quietly trained me to ask these questions to look beyond the product and see the bigger picture, to look beyond the branding (the visual) to uncover the brand (the story). Working here has shown me that every choice we make even something as simple as choosing tea can be an act of awareness, a step toward something better.
This isn’t just a place that serves ethically sourced drinks; it’s a space that encourages dialogue, creativity, and action in ways that matter.
Being part of this mission has inspired me to engage with the world more thoughtfully, to recognize the interconnectedness of what’s in my cup with the hands that picked the leaves, the land that nourished them, and the systems that bring them to us.
Experiences like these have taught me that leadership isn’t about standing at a podium. It’s in the conversations we have, the choices we make, and the communities we build. It’s about being aware, being engaged, sharing our awareness and letting that guide how we move through the world.
At the festival, I wasn’t just enjoying tea; I was experiencing the cultures, histories, and labor behind every steeped leaf. I left with a deeper respect for the industry and a sense of responsibility that I hope to share with other. So here’s my takeaway… Enjoy your tea. Savor it.
But next time, let it stir up some questions too. Because true enjoyment requires true equity, and deeper structural (dare I say systemic) change.
Dear readers, we go about our daily lives moment to moment living, rarely stopping in the midst of the chaos of life to reflect on where we came from, how far we’ve gotten, the many things that make the world, which we live in, the many things that make us who we are. Most of the time we aim to push forward, keeping the cycle of life moving. Stopping would mean pausing on this rhythm that we have worked so hard to keep flowing. Like many of you this Author is no different, although she does feel the need to come out and share her story, her story of volunteering at this very cafe where some of you enjoy the amazing mochas, their vegan cookies (yum) and work through our tasks for the day or have marvellous conversations with our friends. These accounts written by her are close to the author’s heart, beating in memory as she tries to recollect her accounts and the small moments that changed her within.
Entry #1
DATE: June 10, 2024
EVENT: Docs & Lattes
DOC: Born in Gaza
Around 7:40 I was in tears, I felt shy and embarrassed. Both. No matter how hard I tried, the tears kept rolling down. I heard someone sniffle behind me, with a sigh in my mind I let mine roll down to accompany the other tears that I heard. It was the 10th June and I think it was a Saturday, my apologies it was a Monday, but the cafe was buzzing with people and conversation as though it was a weekend. I thought I was late, prior to this I was extremely nervous about how it was going to go, it was my first Docs & Lattes with the cafe and I was asking myself if I will be good enough; will they like my pictures? Would they be up to the mark? Would I be able to capture the rawness of the emotions? Would it be okay to capture those emotions? But if I don’t capture the realness of these pictures how will I express what they felt?
There were these numerous thoughts that made home in my head all the way leading up to the event. Once I saw my manager I immediately asked her what she needed from me. This excites me, any sort of setting up, putting things together and seeing them become something makes me feel as though I contributed to something bigger than me and that I was a part of it. On this day the cameras were not functioning and I used my phone to capture the images that I had planned to. We settled down and I found a spot by the corner, excitement filled me, the nerves had caused me to become even more active and ready to get on it.
I had never watched “Born in Gaza” prior to this and I knew the times we were in, it made perfect sense to me why we chose this documentary. I took a quick look around the room and saw several supporters, I managed to spot a young supporter who had dawned a Keffiyeh supporting Palestine and it made my heart swell because she understood why we were here, or in Gen Z terms… she understood the assignment. Once the documentary started, I was eager to capture the moments that kept the viewers on the hook, I was waiting for a moment when somebody was ready for me, ready for me to capture their openness to this moment as I was. I took some snapshots of people sipping on to their coffees and interestingly watching what was going on the screens, I turned my attention towards the screen and it is at this point where I was officially a viewer and not a volunteer.
I kept my gaze at the screen and watched intensely how the stories started
The Film
They were children, they were merely even ten, some of them as young as four. It took me off guard, I had not expected young kids to be narrating the documentary but here I was watching every word they had to say. It was narrated in Arabic. I missed it, it reminded me of back home. I did not understand it very many much but their tone, their expressions, some words that I knew here and there, and the subtitles that were there all added up to how I was interpreting it. I have lived in the Middle East and the streets, the infrastructure they showed were somehow close to me, I could not help myself but imagine if this were happening where I grew up. The things that were explained broke my heart not once but many times during the entirety of my watch.
Before I knew it, it was me that I caught crying first, I was pleasantly astonished and in shock when many of these kids were smiling, their mom’s trying to cheer the kids up, when they would play with their dolls even though they knew it was all temporary, I drank my tears and put out a strong front. It was gut wrenching to watch the kids explain how they lost their loved ones unexpectedly… can we imagine something like this happening to us? We go on about our days, sometimes annoyed by our partners or families and wish our lives were different, some of us wish we didn’t have our sucky jobs, some of us wished we didn’t live in a particular area of where we currently reside. Again I am no different, we all have something we wish to change.
Looking at their lives I kept reflecting on mine, constantly making those parallels, what do I have that they don’t and the answers in my head kept coming and they didn’t stop. It was the understanding of where I am at present, what I have at present and what they don’t that got me constantly thinking and thanking God up there for what I do have. A moment like that impacted me so much that I forgot where I was, hearing those sniffles made me realize it was okay for me to let myself be. I managed to wipe them away, thinking to myself how the emotions took a ride from feeling heartbroken to feeling grateful to feeling even more heartbroken when I realized that the documentary was showing a resolve- an aftermath, a normal life, kids going to school, people roaming in the streets, the old ladies who were buying food, several of them were seen moving through their life into a new sense of normalcy.
This was the point where I internally broke down within myself, because this is when reality kicked in, I remember thinking to myself “this is still happening” and questioning where would they be now? I wondered as I think most of the viewers did as well, where are they now? Are they okay? They must have grown up since to relive it again. So many thoughts again that were rushing to my head. But this time they were all questions that I knew I had to ask myself that I knew were important and I could not stay in ignorance any longer. This documentary opened my perspective to something even more than I thought it would. It made me appreciate what I have, it made me think, it made me think and that is what I want to take away from this experience.
After the Documentary
After the screening it was quiet, very quiet, we didn’t talk for a while everybody was visibly taking some time to process. We made a circle and shared our experiences, the feeling didn’t leave us. I won’t be sharing what we shared there, but this I can tell, I wasn’t alone, this I can tell you, you are not alone. I knew it was time for my bus and the night was coming to an end, I looked around to see the many people gathered around, some had not finished their snacks, the coffees left alone, conversations prior to the screening were halted and it was as though we paused time.
My Message To You
Readers, I know we all have something here and there that takes up space in our head and we all have our own lives to get to but I only ask of you to take a step back and look at how blessed we are at present. We can help each other simply by being kind and understanding of others and ourselves.
Keeping hope and looking forward to to newer experiences…
