Latest news with #FanshaweCollege
CTV News
2 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Goodwill opens in south London
Grand opening of the new Goodwill Community Store & Donation Centre at 3245 Wonderland Road South, London, ON. (Source: Goodwill Industries) A new Goodwill has opened in south London on Wonderland Road. The grand opening was July 17, bringing 16,500 square feet of shopping space and a drive-through drop-off donation centre. The store is located at 3245 Wonderland Road South and is creating jobs for people who have been shut out of the labour market, according to the store manager, Danielle Greer. 'At the point of opening, we created 60 new jobs for the community, filling most positions through our partnerships,' said Greer. Their partnerships include multiple local employment services, such as Fanshawe College Community Employment Services and WILL Employment Solutions. The Goodwill store aims to divert up to 3.5 million pounds of waste from the London landfill per year. The store will be open seven days a week.
CTV News
2 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Worn and Torn donation drive ends Sunday
Jay Stanford, London's director of Climate Change, Environment and Waste Management holds up an old towel and a beaten up pair of dungarees that would be perfect for the Worn or Torn Donation Drive on June 25, 2025. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London) Whether you're doing some weekend closet organizing or have a pile of old clothes that needs to be donated, Sunday is the last day to donate old clothing and textiles for the Worn and Torn drive. The Worn and Torn clothing and textile donation drive began on July 2 and ends July 20. The drive began this year, encouraging Byron residents to donate old textiles, regardless of their condition. With fast fashion filling landfills, the city of London began the initative in collaboration with Fanshawe College and Goodwill industries in order to recycle and repurpose old textiles. The main goal is to keep textiles out of the landfill. Items can be brought to the Goodwill Donation Centre at the Oxford Street EnviroDepot, 1570 Oxford St. W., London.
CBC
4 days ago
- General
- CBC
Thinking about tossing your ripped and stained clothes? The city wants them
More than 9,000 kilograms of Londoners' old clothing, linens and other textiles are on their way to being sorted and given a second life through a new city-run recycling project. For the past two weeks, people have been donating their used goods to a textiles donation centre at the Goodwill depot in Byron, including items that are ripped, stained and would otherwise be thrown out. Items collected will then be sorted into things that can be reused, upcycled or completely broken down into new unexpected materials, organizer say. "There may be a perception out there that [some items] are not worthy to be donated," said Rainer Voigt, the vice president of operations and sustainability at Goodwill Ontario Great Lakes. "If it's a t-shirt you've had, and it's pilled, you might think 'I don't want to donate it because I'm embarrassed because it's low quality or something,'" Voigt said. "We are messaging that there are alternatives for it." The Worn or Torn drive is co-organized by the City of London, Goodwill Industries and Fanshawe College, who are trying to prevent reusable materials from being tossed in the garbage. Between 3,000 and 6,000 tonnes of textiles go to London's landfill every year, according to the city's director of climate change, environment and waste management Jay Stanford. "It represents a lot of material that could be recovered by Londoners," he said. "Not everyone knows when something is reusable or recyclable, so the purpose of our program is to bring everything to us, including items that are worn and torn, and the decision on how they're handled next is made by Goodwill," Stanford said, adding that more than 700 people have brought in donations so far. After the collection in Byron ends, the donations will be moved to Goodwill's sorting facility in south London, where team members will separate items that are reusable, recoverable and end-of-life. "Reusable would refer to things that we would sell back in our store. Recoverable are things that, when we partner with upcyclers, they can take that garment, reconstruct it into something else and sell it again," Voigt explained. "End-of-life is exactly what it means … We cannot upcycle it into something else, we can't sell it in our stores for whatever reason, so the question is what other options are available to us?," he said. Clothes can be broken down and reused through mechanical and chemical recycling processes, Voigt said, and turned into car insulation, plastic water bottles and knife handles, but that can sometimes be complicated. "When it comes to recycling textiles, we need to look at fabrication and we need to look at disrupters on the garment, so the buttons, zippers, patches and labels," he said. "For example, car insulation has very specific requirements on what the feedstock needs to look like. In order to give them what they need, there is a process that we need to go through in order to make the product as clean as possible." "It would be easier to just toss it into the garbage. That's not what we're doing here," he said. Last resort options for old textiles include cutting them to sell as rags, or bundling large quantities and sending them to markets overseas, Voigt said, and some items ultimately end up in the landfill. Following the sorting process, Goodwill will inform the city on how many donations were actually reused, Stanford said, which will help them decide whether to run the project in other neighbourhoods. "We're all trying to reduce the amount of waste we place at the curb," Stanford said. Londoners can continue donating their used textiles to the Worn or Torn donation drive at 1570 Oxford St W. until July 20.
Hamilton Spectator
10-06-2025
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
Convocation central: London's arena district braces for two mega-grads
Hockey jerseys out, grad gowns in. London's downtown arena, home to the national champion London Knights junior hockey team, will become convocation central for not just one, but both of London's post-secondary schools for the first time starting Monday. Thousands of graduates from Western University and Fanshawe College, and their guests, will converge on the downtown this month to receive their degrees and diplomas in ceremonies beginning with Western this week. 'From June 9 to 13, more than 6,700 graduates are expected to cross the stage during nine ceremonies, with more than 33,000 guests anticipated throughout the week,' Western spokesperson Marcia Steyaert wrote in an emailed statement. More than 8,000 graduates will join the school's more than 370,000 alumni, she added. Western has long held its convocation ceremonies at Alumni Hall on its campus, but is 'temporarily' relocating them to Canada Life Place to address 'space and accessibility challenges while maintaining a memorable and inclusive experience,' Steyaert said. Fanshawe College's spring convocation ceremonies are scheduled at the arena the following week, from June 16 to June 19. London-based Fanshawe, with three campuses in London and others in Simcoe, St. Thomas and Woodstock, has held its London convocation ceremonies at Canada Life Place, the former Budweiser Gardens, since 2022. Last spring, an estimated 5,000 graduates in Fanshawe-red gowns took part in the ceremonies over three days. Graduates are seated on the floor of the arena for the ceremonies and their guests in the venue's lower bowl. For an entertainment district accustomed to feeding off fans going to and from hockey games and concerts at the arena, graduations at Canada Life Place are still a relatively new but welcome boost for restaurants and other businesses nearby. 'Anything that they can do utilizing that arena, they should,' said Crystal Kendall, owner of the Early Bird restaurant on Talbot Street near the arena. 'I know a lot of us in the downtown area appreciate the added business, for sure.' Kendall said she's experienced a boost in the number of patrons from Fanshawe's previous convocation ceremonies and welcomes the added traffic. Across the street from Canada Life Place, at Forget Me Not Flowers & More in the Covent Garden Market, floral designer Val Denomme said she expects a busy couple of weeks for the shop and hopes Western's convocation will drive sales as Fanshawe's ceremonies have done. 'If it's as good as Fanshawe, it really makes us busy through the whole week,' Denomme said. 'We're definitely hoping it's going to make a big difference.' At the corner of King and Talbot streets, near the arena and the market, is the Saga board games and coffee cafe. Manager Ector Toledo-Huerta said traffic can be sporadic in his experience working during Fanshawe's convocation ceremonies, but the cafe is adding an extra worker in case it gets busy. 'We just kept an extra pair of hands to do with any possible extra business coming through,' he said. 'Usually, the morning during the weekdays (it's) manageable, but if suddenly there is a spike in business we need more people to work around.' The additional traffic and potential for extra business isn't lost on Western. The university has partnered with the downtown business association and graduates, along with their guests, can be on the lookout for 'signage, promotions and special offers,' Steyaert said. Steyaert said Western has also teamed up with London Transit to offer free rides between campus and Canada Life Place for graduates and guests who show their convocation ticket. bwilliams@ Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
CTV News
04-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Canada's first military-connected college crosswalk opens at Fanshawe
Hundreds gather at Fanshawe College to watch the unveiling of Canada's first military crosswalk, reports CTV London's Lauren Stallone.
