Table of Contents

• Welcome!

• SEPTEMBER PRESENTATION IN CLASSROOMS

• YIF CO-HOSTS A READING AT NOVEL IDEA!          

• YIF Travelling Show

• YIF at INTERNATIONAL SOLARPUNK CONFERENCE

• Barn Mural by YIF Artists

• Tell an Educator or Community Group about Youth I …

• Welcome to our New 202 Festival Administrator

• Coming Up: The December 2025 Exhibition

Welcome!

YIF Board members needed the summer to recharge and breathe, outside in nature. Some of us went canoeing, kayaking, or cycling, and struggled with vegetable gardens. Several of us were very grateful for a Cold Climate Heat Pump, which did a better job during that endless heatwave than previous large air conditioners. Now we are alerting jury members that the art and stories from 2025 youth are pouring in! 

SEPTEMBER PRESENTATION IN CLASSROOMS

Youth Imagine the Future presentations (a curated slideshow, updated often) started on Thursday, September 4th at Sydenham High School and continued each school day throughout September. We reached 87 classes! This year, Ernestown Intermediate School, St. Martha’s, Molly Brant PS and Monsignor J.J. O’Neill Schools were all new to us, and very receptive to our climate solution messaging. Later this fall, we’ll give a presentation to Queen’s students in the Faculty of Education.  At one grade 8 gathering, some students lingered behind to speak to the presenter. At this school, the tech had not worked for a good fifteen minutes so there had been a lot of waiting. Still, their interest was keen, and several were thrilled at the solutions people are working on and using, calling them, “cool,” and “amazing.” One said his head was “spinning with ideas.” Below are a selection of photos of our presentations in action!

YIF CO-HOSTS A READING AT NOVEL IDEA! 

YIF and Novel Idea hosted a reading of solarpunk stories this past June to the public. It was a delight for listeners to hear young Jessi Paul read her First Place Winning story aloud to the public at Kingston’s oldest independent bookstore.

YIF Travelling Show

Since June, our YIF Travelling Show has been set up at another Youth Open Mic event at the Broom Factory, at smaller gatherings, and has graced the window of Minotaur Games and Gifts in downtown Kingston.

If you belong to a group with any interest in youth mental health, climate action, social justice, or youth and the arts, please contact Nikki at [email protected] to set up a display at one of your meetings. We can give a very brief 5 minute talk to explain YIF to your group, or we can give a 10 minute slideshow if preferred, along with the YIF travelling art show.

YIF at INTERNATIONAL SOLARPUNK CONFERENCE

Jerri gave a presentation at the International Solarpunk Conference on June 21st (online). This was to inspire adult writers to incorporate solutions being used around the world into more hope-inspiring fiction writing. As readers and viewers of films, we all need to see possible, improved futures to encourage us to fight for them. Even Hollywood is asking for solarpunk film scripts.

The conference will be available on YouTube in the next few months. Jerri recommends people watch the presentation by Dr. Phillip Crosby, a professor of architecture, in the 2023 Solarpunk Conference on You Tube: Redesigning City Streets. He begins by discussing what a street is for. It will wake up your brain.  His talk in 2025 was about eco-collaborative housing, another great one.

Jerri had three short stories published this year with some positive climate fiction in each: a serious one in Split Rock Review, a light one in Belladonna’s Garden Literary Magazine, and a quirky one set at a COP conference, in Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, out soon. 

Barn Mural by YIF Artists

If you get a chance to pop out to Little Cat Conservation Area, (treat yourself to a delightful trail walk, fall or winter), the house after the entrance has a new giant mural on the side of the barn, facing Division St./Perth Road. The owners, a wonderful couple, believe in local food, community gardens, renewable energy, and sustainable living. They hired our winning Senior Artist from YIF 2024, Caitlin Ball, to design a mural to reflect their feelings about local food and their love of cycling. Caitlin’s friend and fellow award-winning YIF artist, Ellora Outwater, painted this beautiful mural.

Note: people asked last year if Caitlin could make them a print of her winning art, “Crowded Table.” She can, and will. Contact YIF at [email protected] if you are interested in an extremely limited edition print of such a meaningful piece of youth art. It is on our website YouthImagineTheFuture.com under “Previous Festivals.”

Tell an Educator or Community Group about Youth Imagine the Future’s free presentations

September was jam-packed, but if an educator wants a presentation at another time of the year, they can always give us a try. January-May there are usually some days that we might be able to present. The educator should be teaching grades 7 -12, college, university or adult classes.

We are also happy to give an hour-long presentation to a group interested in solutions to the Climate Crisis from local communities and across the world. It’s the good news we all need to hear.

Email us at youthimagine[email protected] 

Welcome to our New 202 Festival Administrator

Thanks to the Community Foundation of Kingston & Area, we are able to hire a Festival Administrator for a longer time period this year. We are delighted that Monica Montero is able to accept the enlarged position and tackle all the background spreadsheets, google slideshows, and zillions of letters to parents, teachers, jury members, supporters, sponsors, etc. Monica is a brilliant administrator with a background as a school counsellor. She is also a local artist with a strong environmental ethic! Fun fact:  Monica won First Place at the St. Lawrence College Imagines the Future festival two years ago!

Coming Up: The December 2025 Exhibition

We are delighted that Queen’s University’s Faculty of Education is going to host our YIF exhibition this year! They are helping us to transform the Education Library into a gorgeous gallery full of this year’s student art and story submissions. 

YIF Board members will pick up all the art from many schools in the last week of November, then set up the gallery Dec. 1^st and 2^nd. It will be open to the public on December 3^rd!  

There is a parking lot facing Union Street (at the corner of Sir John A, west side) and street parking on Union and several side streets nearby. Even if you parked at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour near Peter’s Drugs and walked up 3 blocks to Duncan McArthur Hall, it’s a lovely walk through that tiny, heritage neighbourhood.

The Education Library (and, our gallery) is open December 3-12 on the following days:

Mondays to Thursdays 8 am – 7 pm     Free Parking after 5

Fridays  8 am – 4:30 pm

Saturdays   Closed  (sadly)

Sundays 12:30 – 5pm                Free Parking

NOTE TO PARENTS & RELATIVES OF ARTISTS:  bring your student to see their art after school Monday through Thursday or that first Sunday, December 7^th. 

2025 YIF Awards Ceremony

The Awards Ceremony will be held at the CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY on Johnson St., Kingston, on the afternoon of SUNDAY DECEMBER 14^th.   Due to Fire Regulations, we have to limit the guests to the students who are receiving awards (who will hear this news by Dec. 3^rd) and two guests, as well as their teachers and special guests who are presenting awards.  It is very likely we will again host the Junior Art Awards at 2pm, then clear the room. Then at 3pm, we will begin the Senior Art awards with the Short Story Awards (mixed ages).  All of the winning art will be moved here for the ceremony and on display. Students will take their art home after signing a form.

Note: we will invite about 12 artists to lend us their art for January-Sept 2026 for a YIF Travelling Show. We would take them all, but 12 is about all we can set up at events.

Take your award-winning student out to celebrate afterward, if possible! Just ensure we got a group photo with them before you leave. 

Here is a sneak preview of some of the art we spied in-process last week. Very exciting:

Environmental Thoughts for Fall:  Putting Our Yards to Bed

Sadly, we are losing our world’s biodiversity. More than one species per day is going extinct. Consider planting a little cluster of native trees to help biodiversity! Autumn is the best season to plant. A caveat: never plant a lonely tree. Recent research has proven that trees are social; more is happening below ground, than above. The famous botanist, Dr. Miyawaki, created a method of planting native trees in remediated soil to quickly return rich biodiversity back to the region. Look up “Miyawaki forests” around the world.

Dr. Joyce Hostyn of Queen’s has adapted that famous method for our region. Little Forests Kingston’s website shows you how to plant a family of native trees, choosing from native low, medium and tall canopy trees, by mowing a patch of grass, covering it with heavy brown cardboard, then a thick layer of leaves and straw, then a layer of compost, and a final thick layer of wood chips–(free from many arborists, e.g., Westwood Trees, and Eco Tree Care, Highway 15.) You could prepare a patch this fall and plant in the spring.

Perhaps you’ve seen Little Forests plantings across Kingston? They are popping up on front and back lawns, with larger ones at the Seniors’ Centre in Portsmouth; in Grenville Park; north of John Marks Ave as part of the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Garden; and at Lakeside Community Garden beside Centre 70. Visit  LittleForests.org to learn more.

Tip: I buy “Roots Rescue,” the mycorrhizal fungi as dried powder, & add it to water as I plant… 

Enjoy the fall! Mark December 3-12 to come and see our 2025 YIF Exhibition at Queen’s Faculty of Education! It is going to be splendid!

In the meantime, find us at Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram!