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Where to go: WinterPeg

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Check out the WinterPeg project, as they bring a mobile cross-country ski and snowshoe library to a park near you!

Winterpeg ENjoy

It’s not too late to get out of the house and enjoy some winter fun. Over the last month, the WinterPeg project has been breaking trails and bringing a free mobile ski library to parks across Winnipeg. The project is bringing winter fun to communities across town by building ski, snowshoe and walking trails. Everyone is welcome to swing by and try out a pair of skis; check out the calendar to see where they are heading next.

Since early February, WinterPeg has been developing a network of skiing and walking trails within the city. With the help of Peg City’s trucks, the Mobile Ski Library has visited over 30 locations!

Peg City Car Co-op, Winterpeg Mobile Ski Library pop-up

The idea is simple, and it’s fun. “Our goal is that there is something within walking distance and something special in every neighbourhood,” said Anders Swanson in an interview with CBC Manitoba. With a variety of sizes available, all you have to do is show up and you’ll be spending the afternoon zipping around with your friends. For those looking for a little more friction and stability, WinterPeg also carries a selection of snowshoes, or you can grab a fresh cup of coffee and enjoy a refreshing walk around the loop!

This coming weekend they will be heading to the Minto Loop trail. Take a look at the ski library calendar.

friends Skiing, WinterPeg Mobile Ski Library
ski selection, WinterPeg Mobile Ski Library

The WinterPeg project was developed by our partners at the Winnipeg Trails Association. The folks at WTA work year-round to help folks, walk, bike, wheelchair, and now ski through public spaces within their community. But a mobile ski library needs serious wheels; that’s where we come in! Our half-tonne trucks come equipped with a trailer hitch for light-duty hauling, making it easy to move from park to park and then just park when the fun is done.

So while we are happy to facilitate the heavy lifting, we hope you’ll join the fun by walking, biking, and busing out to the trails this weekend. See you there!

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Mobile Murals: Meet the Artists

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Peg City Car Co-op and Synonym Art Consultation are thrilled to announce our wildest collaboration yet! Featuring artists Cyndie Belhumeur and Shaneela Boodoo.

Since 2012, Synonym Art Consultation has curated and facilitated over 100 different art installations and events in various venues across Winnipeg, always with the goal of making contemporary art more accessible to the public. Once again, we have partnered with Synonym to bring you some art on-the-go, just in time for Wall-to-Wall 2020!

Ford 150 Transit & mural

Our biggest cargo van, the Ford 150 Transit, now features Cyndie Belhumeur and Shaneela Boodoo’s 2019 Wall-to-Wall mural submission. Cyndie and Shaneela’s mural was a no-brainer when it came to selecting a mural for our new Peg City cargo van, with the artwork’s many ties to Winnipeg. Our past collaborations with Synonym artists have been outstanding, so we were excited to go even bigger this year!

Cyndie Belhumeur, Shaneela Boodoo infront of collaborative mural
Cyndie Belhumeur

Cyndie Belhumeur is a multidisciplinary artist living in Montreal. Cyndie questions sensitive representations of an ever-evolving volume of information. Using different approaches and mediums, she plays with accumulation, density, intimacy and overload of information to draw invisible links between virtual and real. She pushes back notions of limits and exchanges between physical and digital aspects as well as the changes that this relationship arouses in our understanding of the world. Cyndie aims to overwhelm the spectator presenting a multitude of intertwined elements by using multiple images, superimpositions and a variety of mediums. With these, she attempts to arouse a variety of interpretations, even opposing ones: organic and psychic, harmonized and chaotic and disturbing.

Shaneela Boodoo

Shaneela Boodoo is a graduate of the University of Manitoba with a BFA (Honours) in Design. She is a second-generation immigrant, born and based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and identifies as Indo-Caribbean. As an emerging artist, designer, and curator, Boodoo explores themes such as colonialism, displacement, and womanhood. Boodoo has also worked to establish and brand many BIPOC collectives in the city, such as RIND, Patterns Collective and Chroma Collective. She was previously the Gallery Program Assistant at the School of Art and has curated shows such as Adornment and Analogous that centered the experiences of BIPOC in institutional spaces. Shaneela currently sits on Wall-to-Wall’s 2020 Artistic Committee.

For 2019’s Wall-to-Wall, Cyndie was tasked to create a mural that brought life, colour, and creativity to downtown Winnipeg. Cyndie developed a mural design pulling together feelings, textures, experiences, and instances of Winnipeg/ Treaty 1 Territory as collected and shared by Shaneela. 

The collaborative mural references the many facets that Manitobans recognize such as frosty trees, pink prairie evening skies, transit bus seat patterns, and murky spring puddles.

You might spot our latest mobile mural around town or take it for a drive yourself!

Looking to make a booking with the slickest cargo van in town? Sign up with Peg City Car Co-op today!

For the latest Wall-to-Wall festival updates, visit walltowallwpg.com, or find them on Instagram.

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Peg City Partners: Fireweed Food Co-op

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Introducing Fireweed, Winnipeg’s first co-operative Food Hub: an aggregator and wholesale distributor of locally produced vegetables, meats, honey, grains, and other food products. Featuring as many food puns as I can mustard.

If you carrot all about local food and are feeling cheesed about globalization and industrialized food. If you are ready to squash exploitative labour conditions and plant the seeds of a resilient food future for Manitoba?

Too many puns? Kale stop.

Still stewing over how to get local food to local people? Try a Food Hub (its delicious!)

Friendly tip: if you’re reading this post and wondering “is that how that word is spelt?” it may be a pun.

So what even is a Food Hub?

Conor with Camille Metcalfe of Norwest Co-op

Fireweed Food Hub is the wholesale food distributor of Fireweed Food Co-op, a non-profit, multi-stakeholder co-op with two types of members: producers and supporters of local food.

The Food Hub works by gathering (aggregating) products from its producer members to sell to buyers like community centers, restaurants, and grocery stores.

The Food Hub uses an online ordering system: co-op members can sell their produce through the website, while buyers place weekly orders. Fireweed then collects the food and makes weekly deliveries.

Dill-iveries are made using our fancy new ford 150 Transit. Right now this cargo van has enough space for a whole weeks orders. We hope it wont be long untill they’ll need 2 vans!

Carsharing has been particularity useful for the Food Hub as they kick off their pilot year! Due to fairly common grant funding restrictions, the Food hub is not able to purchase a delivery vehicle. However, they are able pay for metered travel expenses, which includes carshare rentals!

A Peg City membership can be soup-er helpful to smaller organizations looking to get in at the grass roots and scale slowly.

Get in touch with Peg City Car Co-op to find a plan that suits your small business, or non-profit!

Fireweed Food Hub in action

It may not feature the romance of a farmers market, but the folks at Fireweed Food Hub are doing tangible work within communities across Winnipeg.

Every week, wholesale buyers place orders from Friday to Monday, using the co-op’s online ordering system. Once orders close, they send order details to their local producers, who bring bulk orders to the warehouse on Tuesday. Early Wednesday morning, Fireweed staff load up the van and make their deliveries.

I was grateful to meat the Fireweed team and tag along for one of their weekly deliveries. Starting from their West End warehouse, we loaded up Peg City’s biggest cargo truck, the Ford 150 Transit, with local produce, meats and goodies.

These deliveries go to places like local grocery stores, community centres and local restaurants. The first stop was a produce delivery to to the community kitchen at Norwest Community Food Centre.

Food delivery to Norwest Community food centre
Delivery to Norwest Community Food Centre
norwest community food centre

Why is a Food Hub important?

By supporting small-medium size local producers, we can help grow a more resilient local food system! A Food Hub help buyers and cellers by reducing marketing expenses, minimizing risk, and removing economic barriers, like order volume requirements, to name a few.

A real thyme saver

As you might imagine, feeding people is busy work! The less time farmers have to spend trying to market and sell their products the more time they can spend growing food. On the other end, local restaurants looking to feature local produce, benefit from placing a single weekly order, rather than wrangling 7 different suppliers.

Risk: putting all your eggs in one basket.

What happens when the economy is hit by a global pandemic? If you are a farmer, selling everything you can to a single restaurant, and suddenly, people all start eating at home… you’re toast! If you are a restaurant depending on a single farmer, your kitchen may suffer serious melon-colly, if that same farmer decides moves to sell everything to a local grocery store. When we increase access to a bigger selection of buyers and sellers, we can increase access to local food!

When a market becomes more secure, more people can participate, and so the local economic pie gets bigger!

Greater access, fewer berry-ers

berries
 spray-free local raspberries from one of our coop producer members. 

Order volume requirements can be a serious hurdle for small producers trying to sell products through major grocery stores. Scaling up can be tricky when you go from selling by the box to by the pallet! For obvious reasons, this leaves many local producers in a serious pickle…

This is how a Food Hub helps to bridge is the gap between regional, sustainable producers and serious buyers like major grocery stores. Instead of buying a second farm, producers can sell collectively through the Hub and get their grub on display.

Lettuce all participate in local markets!

Support your local Food Hub

Fireweed warehouse

There are a few big ways that you can support the Fireweed Food Co-op.

1. Become a member: anyone can join the co-op as a supporter member.

2. Make a contribution: make a donation, pay-it-forward, or support the Waste-Not Food Box program!

Last but not least, buy local!

3. Sign up as a wholesale customer to make local food purchases for your organization or business.

Want to buy local food for your household? Visit the South Osborne Farmers market every Wednesday, 4-8 pm, from June to September.

Okay. I think that’s all I’ve got. I’m beet!

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Multi Modal Mural Tour

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We’re getting stoked for the 2020 Wall-to-Wall mural festival. So we want to take you on a tour of previous works in anticipation of this years submissions!

You can walk, bike, bus, drive carshare to visit any of the many murals brought to you by the Wall-to-Wall festival. Share your favorite destination on social media for a chance to win one of our weekly prizes! Read on for details:

The Multi-Modal Mural Tour:

peg city car coop car by Wall to Wall Mural

We want to celebrate accessible public art so we are taking you on a Multi-Modal Mural Tour!

For the next four weekends we will be posting a selection of Wall-to-Wall murals installed around the city. We are encouraging folks to visit their favourite pieces from the Wall-to-Wall Mural Map by whichever mode of travel they can. We hope you take some time to explore our city’s vibrant murals and enjoy the nearby destinations!

Each weekend we will drawing for prizes from local businesses to the folks who share a snapshot of their adventure with us on Instagram and Facebook!

Simply take a picture of yourself (or a friend) by one of the murals posted on the Mural Map tag @pegcitycarcoop and @synonymartconsultation. You can post to your story or onto your feed. Enter your post from Friday to Sunday to be entered into the draw.

Have fun and see you out there!

We’ve expanded! We now have carsharing location in the St. John’s and Luxton Areas. Sign up today using our expansion promo code GROW100 for a $100 credit!

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Synonym Art Consultation

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Peg City Car Co-op is a proud partner of Synonym Art Consultation and the Wall-to-Wall festival. The festival aims to make public art accessible and a part of the everyday experience of living in Winnipeg. 

synonym team standing near Peg City Car Co-op Image Wrapped vehicle

Since 2012, Synonym Art Consultation has curated and facilitated over 100 different art installations and events in various venues across Winnipeg, always with the goal of making contemporary art more accessible to the public. One of the most exciting ways they do this is by co-producing the Wall-to-Wall Festival:

https://www.facebook.com/synonymartconsultation/videos/1438989126285586/

“A mural and culture festival started in Winnipeg, Manitoba on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation and Treaty 1 Territory. The community-focused festival highlights equal parts muralsmusic, and youth workshops and mentorships. “

Learn more

This year, Wall-to-Wall is one of the very few festivals that has not been cancelled by the ongoing pandemic. And while the festival is still set for September, this year there will be some big changes. 

Chloe: “We feel very lucky right now. Synonym and the arts community have always been know for being adaptable. When the virus hit, we were devastated to have to cancel the Rural Mural Tour and a variety of programs offered to youth and schools. However, we are lucky to have found a way to shift many of our programs online.” 

Did you attend the recent Virtual Drag Safe Grad?

This year Wall-to-Wall is opening a fully digital call for submissions, which has made the program more accessible. All of the selected works will be printed on to 8ftx8ft panels and installed throughout Winnipeg.

Interested in making a submission? Click for details

Chloe: “This kind of change means we can bring new and greater accessibility to public art! Not just for the public, but for artists themselves. Painting full-scale murals can be restrictive for people with mobility or accessibility needs, and also limits the medium of submissions to paintings, almost exclusively.”

The 2020 format will be open to anyone around the world, including painters, graphic designers, and photographers.

“We are thrilled to be broadening the program in this way and will continue to panel a curatorial committee to ensure diversity of voices and equitable decisions.”

Art in motion: The Multi-Modal Mural Tour

This year Peg City and SYNONYM are teaming up to bring members another Mobile Mural! We will be unveiling this new creation at the start of September, just in time for the Wall-to-Wall Festival!

To get people stoked about Wall-to-wall, we are putting on a Multi-Modal Mural Tour: 

Each week starting this Friday, we will post a selection of Wall-to-Wall murals in our Instagram Story. 

You can walk, bike, or carshare to any of the locations and take a picture to add to your Insta Story.

Tag @pegcitycarcoop and @synonymartconsultation for your chance to win one of the weekly prize packs donated from our sponsors, including Fools and Horses, Synonym Arts Consultation, your very own Peg City Car Co-op and more!

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Peg City Partners: Art City

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Meet our friends at Art City, a community art studio dedicated to providing people of all ages with innovative and professional art programming, free of charge! We are grateful to help these folks deliver their programs across the city. Read on if you like fun. 😛

Today I am talking with Josh Ruth, the Managing Director at Art CityArt City is a community art studio dedicated to providing people of all ages with innovative and professional art programming, free of charge. You may recognize the iconic multi-wheeled bicycle on top of their West Broadway location. 

art city logo, bicycle
Delivery volunteer in a Peg City Car

What you may not know is that Art City delivers programming to 16 different communities across Winnipeg. Not too long ago, this posed a significant problem.

You see, due to a funny bit of physics, the Art City van can only be in one location at a time. With more and more requests pouring in from communities across the city, Art City and their dedicated group of staff and volunteers needed another set of wheels. This is where Peg City Car Co-op enters the picture. 

Josh: “Early on, we realized that our one Art City van would not be enough to serve all the communities asking for our services. We were seriously considering buying a second vehicle. That’s when we decided to go with the Car Co-op.” 

As a Member on our Non-Profit+ plan, Art City has access to our entire fleet of vehicles located throughout the city. Now they are providing thousands of participants every year with affordable access to high-quality art programming! 

Big Changes, Bigger imaginations

Like most organizations, the last few months have totally changed the way Art City delivered its programs. Reduced staff and social distancing restrictions meant that in-person programs were off the table.

Josh “One of the things we have maintained for a semblance of normalcy has been our monthly programming calendar. We have many participants who really follow that calendar in anticipation. We are fortunate that many of our staff have continued to volunteer their time by helping plan activities to make up the calendar.”

Check out some of the great ideas posted through their Instagram: 

Josh: “Another area of focus has been collecting and distributing art supplies to participants and their families. We received a lot of feedback from the community requesting supplies.” 

We set up Art City on our Frontline plan, which meant they could book a van for weeks at a time for just $15 a day. Here are a few of the many happy faces that received hand-delivered bundles of art supplies during the recent lock-down. 

And by the way, supplies are always needed! See below for a list of items that they are currently accepting: 

-Quality paper, drawing, watercolour, etc.

-Good quality mark-making tools: pencils, pens, etc.

-Sewing supplies, clean fabric, etc.

-Scissors, tape, glue, etc.

-Art paints, acrylic paint, watercolour paint etc.

-Beading supplies, jewellery making supplies

The Annual Art City Fundraising Party

Art City ball 2019

Like so many other charities, Art City has had to cancel it’s widely anticipated annual fundraising party. Thel party is one of the most significant fundraising events of the year for the organization.  

There are many ways to support Art City. Cash donations make the biggest impact. If you were considering buying a ticket the big party, please consider making a contribution. Other ways to help include buying merchandise from their website and donating art supplies (see the list above).

There is still more to come in the next few months as they begin planning open air programs for the summer months.

Josh: “We are encouraging everyone to save or document art they are making for a future exhibition called “We Made It!” When we can gather again, we will be able to see each other’s experiences through our artistic expressions.”

Until then, the team will focus on providing the services they can, including upcoming outdoor open-air programming coming soon!

Josh: “The Art City staff are an incredibly dedicated team of practicing artists. They have been amazing, showing up to weekly brainstorms and check-ins and even volunteering to help us deliver services remotely.”

Van full of art supplies for delivery
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