MABELLEarts Verified listing

MABELLEarts unlocks the creative potential of the neighbourhood.
We reside in the Mabelle neighbourhood and work in partnership with local organizations to:

Build Relationships
MABELLEarts brings people together across real and perceived differences to do something together. We prioritise doing over talking and focus on fun and creative projects with tangible impacts, including economic opportunities for the people who take part. By doing things together, we move from being strangers to becoming neighbours and friends. The resulting social capital knits people together to celebrate in good times and band together when times are tough.
Respond and Change
MABELLEarts is always changing and we love it that way. By remaining responsive to each other, the neighbourhood and world around us we are better able to meet the challenges and opportunities of daily life on Mabelle Avenue.
Co-Create and Transform
Strong neighbourhood leadership built over time shapes ideas and projects that evolve into opportunities for community members. The best of these become permanent social infrastructure (community places and networks) that foster community connection and resiliency.

ABOUT MABELLE AVENUE
Mabelle Avenue is a historically underserved, high density, low-income inner-suburban neighbourhood in Central Etobicoke, Ontario. Four of the seven rental towers lining the block are owned and operated by Toronto Community Housing - the second largest landlord in North America. The block is highly diverse and majority-racialized with a strong Muslim population from Somalia, South Asia and the Middle East. Over the past three years, the block has seen rapid densification with multiple new developments, which has made our work at MABELLEarts all the more relevant. We see our organization as a bridge between residents and cultures and believe that now, more than ever, our neighbours need space to meet one another and become friends.
ABOUT MABELLEpark
Since 2007, MABELLEarts has brought together artists, architects, builders and gardeners with thousands of community members of all ages and backgrounds to reimagine MABELLEpark from an abandoned thoroughfare to a vibrant artpark and community centre without walls. MABELLEpark represents a new kind of social infrastructure - one that can more nimbly respond to community needs and desires and increase collective resiliency. 
ABOUT MABELLEarts
Founded in 2007 by Executive Director Leah Houston, MABELLEarts launched out of a highly successful four year residency on Mabelle Avenue by our predecessors, Jumblies Theatre. Since then, MABELLEarts has grown into an innovative and sustainable charity with strong roots in community-engaged arts, grassroots community development and placemaking. With a yearly budget of $1 million, MABELLEarts has grown into a strong and stable organization with deep roots in our local community.
Read our 2022 Impact ReportRead more