Project Summary

We began the Community Fair Festival series to celebrate our community while engaging in reciprocity. These family-friendly events feature performances and artwork from BIPOC artists, games and recreational activities, stalls for local businesses, spaces for community dialogue, access to community services, and most importantly, free distribution of groceries and clothing.

Our first Fair Festival was on May 27th, 2023 at Guildford Park Secondary, and it was a hit success. We distributed hundreds of bags worth of groceries and clothing, uplifted over 20 small businesses, and had over 1000 attendees!

This series aims to build local climate resilience to address growing climate emergencies, food security challenges, and precarity through mutual aid, solidarity, and community organizing that builds on the strengths, experience, skills, and resilience of racialized migrant communities.

Q: But, what does that have to do with climate justice?

A: Everything.

Free Grocery Store

As climate disaster wreaks agricultural systems worldwide, food instability accelerates. The cost of groceries is at an all time high, while corporate grocers rake in profits.
Reports say over half of all produce in Canadian grocery stores is lost and wasted annually. On top of that, millions of tonnes of produce are thrown away yearly while they could instead be redistrbuted freely if they aren't sold, curbing the climate impacts of their wastage and supporting communities.

Free Clothing Store

For years, the fast fashion industry has done detrimental damage to the environment and the lives of its workers to meet the industry’s sky-high production targets.

Despite the overproduction of clothing, 1 in 6 Canadians cannot afford new clothes when they need them. This is exacerbated with the price hikes of thrift stores, with 75% of clothing donated to them not being sold and then thrown out. Our free second-hand clothing store makes sure these clothes truly don’t go to waste.

📍 Highschools

Climate Recentered makes a statement on the innovative nature of using spaces beyond their typical purpose through historically using ‘closed’ locations for our events. From basketball tournaments in empty parking lots to a festival at a school on the weekend— creatively using existing infrastructures in different ways is essential to realistically building the future we want to live in, without constant industrial development over land. These choices are thoughtful, with schools already being the hubs of neighbourhoods, and highschoolers making waves within justice-based movements, what better location for this celebration? We are already surrounded by the solutions we seek.

Small Businesses

We invite small business to be vendors at the Fair Fests in order to amplify those creating with love and care for their community. Unsustainable large corporations overproduce goods that are low quality, not humanely made, and will fall apart quickly. The majority of Fair Fest businesses are Surrey-based, BIPOC-owned, and are all committed to our values. We do not charge small businesses to be vendors, and do not take any share of the profit— it is meant to be an opportunity for our community to grow!

Climate Justice is

Food Justice is Migrant Justice is Racial Justice is LGBTQ+ Justice is Housing Justice is Reproductive Justice is All Justice is

Climate Justice is Food Justice is Migrant Justice is Racial Justice is LGBTQ+ Justice is Housing Justice is Reproductive Justice is All Justice is

Scroll through our Mutual Aid is Climate Justice brochure!

Community Partners

We have been working with the City of Surrey, the Surrey School district, non-profit organizations, and Solid State Community Industries for supplies and rental equipment such as heaters, tents, tables, and chairs. We are hoping to use both outdoor areas (parking lots), inside spaces (classrooms and gyms), and existing furniture and supplies to minimize infrastructure costs. We also engage volunteers to help with set-up, takedowns, clean-ups, and community safety.

We also work with people like you! It is because of our community we have been able to build a supply of infrastructure, equipment, skills, and experiences to be able to do these festivals.