STAFF TEAM
SARAH
(she/they)
Co-Director:
People, Plants and Pollinators
Sarah is a community weaver, gardener and honeybee tender. Passionate about fostering vibrant, healthy community through empowerment and education; they believe in the profound impact of connecting individuals and communities to their land, food, plant medicine, and spirit.
They are of Irish Settler descent, a guest on these shared, ancestral, and occupied lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. Practicing care and connection through healing gardens, plant relations, shared story, and time with hands in soil, Sarah volunteers on the Board of Grounded Futures and as a member with Ancestral Food Ways.
As Time & Times Sarah plays accordion and works with plant fibres - weaving protective spells into adornments towards truth.
cait
(they/them)
Co-Director:
Community Care & Growing Governance
Cait is a queer care worker of Doukhobor and Irish descent.
Based on the ancestral and occupied lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) first peoples.
Graduating from Simon Fraser University with a BA Geography, they are curious about community encounters that transform us and the durational care necessary to persist while considering the geographies of their utopian-commune settler ancestors.
Composing small studies and time-based questions on the edges with Gentle Geographies, - an embodied, land-based research praxis grounded in a study of relationships and conditions - composing with plants and the elements, primarily orbiting through the Downtown Eastside and remote frontlines.
Seasonal Event Artist/Facilitators/Elders/Hosts:
members of the Healing Garden in the DTES who organise community care
ALI K
(she/her)
Ali has worked at the DTES Women’s Centre and now volunteers with Hives for Humanity in the gardens, as part of her process of learning. She was born in Northern Ontario, and named after the midwife who delivered her. Ali raised her kids here in Vancouver, and is now a grandmother, which is Kokum in her language of Oji-Cree
DJ Joe
DENNIS GATES
Dennis was born in Hazelton BC, the third youngest in a family of 14! His family ancestry is from Haida Gwaii. Dennis is a gatekeeper at the Hastings Folk Garden where he does his best to keep people safe(r), and watch that people respect the garden, using non-violent communication and ways. He is part of Megaphone Magazine’s writing program and was recently published with them.
HORACE DAYCHIEF
Horace comes from land with trees all around, and beavers, wildlife, deer – in the morning you’d see deer walking around. He is a journalist, a poet, and a vendor with Megaphone Magazine. He is a certified cook and completed the KNACK program with Potluck. He is a gardener, beekeeper and a candle maker with Hives for Humanity. Horace wants to see more opportunities for workshops in drum making and rattle making, and opportunities for courses and certification! Moose for the moccasins, elk for the rattles and drums – he is a skilled hide tanner.
JIM MCLEOD
(he/him/his)
Jim believes the Downtown Eastside is brimming with talent the rest of the world overlooks. He is an active community member and has served on the boards of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the Drug Users Resource Centre. He is a current member of the Hives for Humanity Board of Directors, a founding member of the H4H Community Engagement Committee, and founder of the DTES Seed Library. He is excited about his work with Megaphone Magazine’s Speaker’s Bureau project, working with audiences and participants to help them see People Who Use Drugs as just that -- people. Jim is also a cast and research member of the Illicit Theatre project – a shadow play about peer first responders and the overdose crisis in the DTES. Jim notes that he is not a “functional addict” but that his functioning, all of his community advocacy, beekeeping and gardening, is possible because he is self-medicating with pain medication. Chemically dependent since elementary school, people are often surprised to learn that Jim has a spotless criminal record. Jim was born and raised in Vancouver and his ancestry is Açorean Portuguese on his dad’s side, and on his mother’s Haida, Kwakiutl and Inuit, with Irish and some British and French.
ROB ALEXCEE
Rob aka Bobbie was born in Prince Rupert, his family originally from Kitkatla, BC, and he is a proud member of the Tsimshian Nation. He has been in Vancouver for 23yrs and is sometimes surprised he is still walking! Rob is a gardener and beekeeper, and he makes a mean fried bread too.
ROBBIE PANTELUK
Robbie was born in Victoria, raised all over bc, been in the dtes for 56yrs on and off! His mum was a recycler, reusing everything and separating it out, throwing away only the bare minimum - “maybe we wouldn’t be in as much of a pickle if we’d all done that. If we have social awareness we could become unique!” Robbie is a gatekeeper and gardener at Hastings Folk Garden, since it began which was about 2008 when the site was just a landfill, now its home for bees and hummingbirds! Robbie is half Irish, half Eukranian.
THERESA GRAY
(she/her)
Theresa is Tsimshian from Prince Rupert and has been living in Vancouver for most of her life. She gardens with plants and sunflowers, watching the bees. She enjoys extracting the honey. She’s volunteers with the DTES Women’s centre for 20years and she loves spending time outdoors in the forests and beaches. She spent a bit of her childhood at Stanley Park and remembers having picnics at Second Beach. Sunshine makes her happy, Theresa is an amazing and passionate volunteer at HFG. She has volunteered with community leaders John. W Sam and Earl Crowe to oversee the sacred fire and hold vigil for the sick and homeless. Theresa is a political advocate and has been to city hall seven times to advocate for Indigenous people. And she votes!!!
WILMA MORRIS
Willie was born in Burns Lake, BC, Jan 26 ’61 – Nee Thai Buhn Wet’suwet’en Nation - at the old Burns Lake Hospital, which is now called George Brown Memorial Centre. “We were all living in a tent year round, my whole family, at South Bank, without housing – my grandparents, parents, cousins, siblings. South Bank is now a ferry landing. We camped all over the place, wherever Dad had a job is where we went. Mum raised lots of kids, not only her own, but cousins and other kids too from off reserve. It was fun in the summer time, we went swimming and our parents were busy cooking and drying meat for the winter, the brother’s going hunting – I wasn’t allowed to go hunting but I followed them in the bush with my slingshot and they never would see me. I’d find rabbit and grouse and get back to camp before them. My grandma used to call me Tom Boy.” Willie now loves working in our gardens and with the bees, working with our team in the DTES, sharing those spaces with her friends in community. For the future, she’d like for people to quit putting so much waste into the water and land, as we are spoiling the soil for the animals. She’d like the world to have more peace with one another, and share lots of love towards both neighbours and enemies; and to teach the young generations about the old ways and they can teach us the new ways.
IN MEMORY:
Members of our organisation and community who have passed, who are not lost nor forgotten, but remembered and loved in ongoing ways. Who gave their time, leadership, skill and love to our places of connection to land: to people, plants and pollinators in our shared community in k’emk’emelay.
FLORENCE HODGESON
Florence joined the Hives for Humanity team when she visited one of our garden and apiary locations in 2012 and started to give her time and energy to the community space. She was a founding member of our Community Engagement Committee. Florence has volunteered and worked at other organisations working towards social justice in the DTES community, including VANDU and PACE, where she has taken leadership roles as a community advocate. Florence, aka Flo, was born in Ontario and has been in Vancouver for 35 years. She is Anishnabe-qwe; from Treaty-3. Flo passed in 2022, missed, loved, and thought of often, Flo’s art, leadership and presence is woven into our work.
KEVIN SLEZIAK
Kevin shared memories of his mom going to the Dukhobor communities to get honey when he was a 4yr old – pulled with his siblings to go and get interested in bees. And of remembering being afraid at first but finding it peaceful and tranquil. That was in Preeceville, Saskatchewan. Kevin finetuned his skills as a beekeeper, woodworker and brewmaster through work with Hives for Humanity, the Woodshop Workers Cooperative and the Drinker’s Lounge (which he was a founding member of along with other likeminded community members and advocates). Kevin reflects that: community is like a bridge, we need all the trestles so it doesn’t fall in. The trestles are the humans, the animals, the food, and the time; all interconnected. Kevin passed in 2021; missed, loved, and thought of often, plants grow in our garden in memory. He is honoured also by the Powell Street Festival where he was a long time volunteer and participated in the annual Sumo Wrestling with a lot of pride and enthusiasm.
MARK DENBAK
Mark was raised by Dutch parents who immigrated from the Netherlands to Niagara Falls, born within 6 months of their immigration, which gave him the right to dual citizenship. Mark came to BC in 2003, after returning to Canada from a decade spent in the Netherlands where he went to school to crack the nut of the Dutch language! It was a challenging and interesting journey in his life, giving him experience with adaptability, integration and language. He spent time there house painting and working in a machine shop garage, and seeing how that culture prioritises learning and supports the right to protest. Mark was a gardener with Hives for Humanity, which he said “gives him time to think, and he enjoys spending time outside, putting our fantastic effort into the gardens, together!” Mark passed in 2021: missed, loved, and often thought of, a basket hangs in our garden in memory.
EDIE WILD
Edie was an artist and gardener, often creating art from flowers and found objects, collected with care, arranged with skill, and gifted to our community with great heart.
Of her work with us Edie shared “It makes me prouder of myself - being a part of the improvement rather than the destruction. Feeling worthy of being looked up to. I feel good when I’m in it - the actual garden. And when it comes up outside of the garden. Out on the streets it’s still everyone scrambling for a buck. But the garden is a source of serenity, an escape. And when I come out I’m in a better mood.”
Edie passed in 2019 and her art hangs in our shared space, continuing to give joy and share beauty.
MICHELLE ROUTHIER
In a feedback interview Michelle gave she shared the following, when asked: What meaning does this work have for you? What impact does it have in your life?
“Self esteem. It gave me a place to go to and work. I have a tendency to isolate - it takes me out, I meet people, we share fun activities, we learn, and we go home feeling good about yourself and a little bit richer - which we all appreciate. I have a purpose when I get up in the morning - something for the community, learning new things and building creativity.”
Michelle passed in 2022, honored as an elder in her many communities including at the DTES Neighbourhood House where she was a long time volunteer.
NEIL BENSON
Neil was a poet and gardener, and the DTES Seed Library was founded in his honour and memory, after he has passed in 2014.
Here is one of his poems, of which he shared many over the years, with skill and generosity, in spoken word, rhythm, rhyme…
Defender of Habitat
I am not a trickster, I manage,
manager of creative living,
consuming favourably waste free,
sparing the fusion of human waste,
swept away, concealed under the rug,
then washed out by rising flood waters.
Within me are ember's of trouble,
edging out intolerance to waste,
I have zero tolerance to trash,
I get by not waste deficient,
the solution to global warming,
is a planet waste deficient.
Already master of the creature's
copulation king I am, I am
to continue expanding my camp,
continue to increase in numbers,
in gods' sanctuary over here,
and over there yonder the beyond.
You put me off by putting me on,
it is another that you favour,
you sing in a song that a shrub is,
a fruitful specie, your second wind,
fresh air from the lily of the valley,
a gandering place when flower's bloom.
You can be one of those reluctant,
to see is to believe in myself,
faithlessness, low morals or whaaat?
chi-yo lingo, yo vulgar papa,
yo' false, artificial, a doll,
legal, business, political.
Binding, bonding, bond-able promise,
my word should be good enough to go,
secure that operation of growth
of invasive species from abroad,
non-indigenous crowding in chokes
other's out for space bring on the strife.
JEFF “DOC” POWELL
Doc was a loved presence at the Hastings Urban Farm for many years as a lead on the farm, growing flowers and food to share in his community with particular joy.
Doc passed in 2017, and we held a feast of Jamaican food in his honour, remembering his generosity, laughter, and care.
MARIO FORTIN
Mario was a gardener at our Hastings Urban Farm who also helped care for hanging baskets though the DTES and our Hastings Folk Garden.
When asked about a special memory of one of our gardens, Mario shared “at the Folk Garden - the Falcon caught and ate a rat right in front of my eyes! It was quite a show! This work feeds my spirit.”
He passed in 2018, and is remembered well in our community.