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Park Avenue Community Oven lands $25K in funding

Firing up the BBQ may be great on a hot summer day — but what if you don't have one? Or want to meet up with a bunch of friends in a park?

The Park Avenue Community Oven in Leighton Dillman Park on the Dartmouth Commons is the only place in the Halifax Regional Municipality you can go for that community cooking.

The wood-fired oven lives inside its own fire-safe structure that opens up with flip-down stainless steel counters and large doors.

It's freely available to the entire community, thanks to the work of volunteers like Ali Shaver, and donations from local companies.

"It's exciting to have seen a project from an idea to actually implemented and thriving, after three years," says Shaver.

From its inception in 2011, to its completion in 2012 — with $20,000 of funding secured by the area's city councillor Gloria McCluskey — the community oven just won more financial support.

"About a month ago we received an email saying, 'We like what you're doing in the park, we're interested, TD Friends of the Environment is interested in supporting 'legacy projects,'" explains Shaver.

Fix that crack

That interest prompted the Park Avenue Community Oven volunteer group to come up with a proposal for the funding. Fixing a sizeable crack in the oven was one of their priorities, as was expanding the community garden and planting more fruit and nut trees. TD Friends of the Environment awarded them a $25,000 grant to get that work done.

Volunteer Tim Fletcher says they plan to learn how to do that kind of major repair on the oven as well, and document it with a video they can share. Fletcher says the funding is really significant for developing what they've started.

"It means a lot to me to be able to teach my daughter where food comes from and how it's prepared. But also to enjoy the park, and being outdoors."

Fletcher and his wife Hannah bring their 15-month-old daughter Rowan to the park all the time, along with hundreds of other members of the neighbourhood.

The Park Avenue Community Oven fires up every Saturday from May to December, weather depending. Shaver and Fletcher say anyone is welcome to meet in the park for a meal, or to book the oven (with its volunteers) any time.

And they say they're happy to share their experiences running the oven with any other groups who may be interested in getting one fired up.