Reimagining the Mino’Weesini Grocery Program as a Place for Connection and Sharing

By Ty Burke

Humans need calories to survive, but food is about so much more than sustenance. We break bread together to celebrate special occasions, show our loved ones we care, and just for the joy of it.

Chiara Del Gaudio, an Associate Professor of Industrial Design and the Director of the Urban Imaginaries Lab. — Chiara Del Gaudio, Associate Professor of Industrial Design.

The Parkdale Food Centre wants its Mino’Weesini Grocery Program to better reflect the central role that food plays in our lives. Located in the west end of downtown Ottawa, Mino’Weesini fights food insecurity by distributing groceries to people who live in a catchment area that includes nearby neighbourhoods like Hintonburg and Mechanicsville. And it holds regular community meals where everyone is welcome.

The Parkdale Food Centre wants the program to be a pathway toward a healthier and more connected community. The question is how best to do that. And to find a way forward, they’re working with Carleton’s Chiara Del Gaudio to co-design a new kind of grocery program.

“This project started from the idea that food security is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one,” says Del Gaudio, an Associate Professor of Industrial Design and the Director of the Urban Imaginaries Lab.

Whiteboard in public space with questions asking the public about how they'd like their community strengthened.

Mino’Weesini is an Algonquin term for ‘good eats’. And the Co-Designing Mino Weesini project used participatory design principles to re-imagine what the program could be, and how best it could be aligned with the needs of the members of the community. Between September 2024 and June 2025, Del Gaudio and a team of graduate students:

Collected community members’ reflections on food justice

Held a community town hall

Staged participatory design workshops with community members to collectively better understand community members’ needs, desires, ideas and generate visions for the future

Hosted an indoor picnic with neighbours

Conducted individual information collection sessions to understand community members feelings about the program

Organized an exhibit with the emerging visions.

“Many of the things people said they want go beyond food,” says Del Gaudio. “They brought forward concerns and needs about things that are not currently addressed by Parkdale Food Centre, such as providing resources to help them contribute to their community and mental health care. We heard about dignity a lot, and there was an understanding of food as pleasure—something to be enjoyed together.”

Community gathered around a table writing down responses to questions on sticky notes and sticking them on a whiteboard.

Based on the community consultations, Del Gaudio brought together four visions of what community members want the future of the program to look like:

A community gathering space where people can come for coffee and build connections with other community members. In this vision for the future, Mino’Weesini becomes a platform for ideas and a hub for community activity.

A space for sharing knowledge, with libraries where people can access books and workshops where people can learn new skills. This vision encourages to contribute their own time, skills and extra items to the community.

A hub for good health that stages wellness workshops and connects people with the health care services that they need. In this vision, Mino’Weesini could teach people about nutrition, and host activities that help people lead an active lifestyle. It would also support users’ mental health by hosting weekly therapy animal sessions, and providing a dedicated rest space where people could pause, reflect and reconnect.

A space for innovating, exploring and sharing ideas. In this vision, Mino’Weesini would be equipped with tools for learning, such as laptops, whiteboards and books. It would facilitate community-led workshops on matters of collective interest. And it would be a hub for innovation, where people are encouraged to design community-based solutions, and implement them to have a real-world impact.

“Working with members of the community showed me firsthand many great ideas are floating around and how excited community members are to work together and make them happen,” says Keeva Szeto, a Master of Design student who worked as a research assistant on the project. “It helped me better understand that a designer is not just there to provide a solution, but to listen to the needs and desires of the community members, and to build connections and uncover pathways between what is already there and what community members hope to see in the future.”

Members of the public gathering and casually chatting outside beside whiteboards showing community requests.

The Parkdale Food Centre will choose its own path forward, and it could choose to build on some elements of each of these visions. But whatever path it chooses will be guided by core values that include care, community, collaboration, inclusion, learning, sustainability, sharing, self-expression and pleasure from food.

“They are visions of what they would like from Mino’Weesini—what they care about,” says Del Gaudio. “What people care about goes beyond food. They want to find ways for connection, sharing, and contributing to the community. The Parkdale Food Centre can be a platform to do these things.”