Healthcare and Wellness : Featured Stories

For residents of writer Sarah B. Hood's Craven Road neighbourhood, small properties are no obstacle to vegetable gardening, especially for those who welcome a 'salad wall.'

Launched in January 2010, the Ontario Social Assistance Review Committee is taking a penetrating look at the province's support structures, and the implications for Toronto are big, says former United Way CEO, Frances Lankin.

Baycrest's "Philosopher in Residence" and author of My Operation, Sholom Glouberman, has been working to improve communication between doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. Now with the creation of the Patients' Association of Canada the folks receiving care have a voice in how the system should change.

Even bakeries can be innovative. A new partnership between Ozery and Compass Canada brings nutritious options to children ahead of the Ontario government's mandate for 80% fresh, whole food in schools -- and it all started as a Ryerson school project.

The new CEO of central Toronto's health integration network, Camille Orridge, began her career as a maid at Toronto General Hospital. Now she wants you to rethink your visit to the emergency room, and how to avoid it altogether.

A personal tragedy led Torontonian Halim Amini to start his own mental health and help industry, complete with radio and TV shows, and a non-profit counseling centre serving the growing Afghan community in Toronto and around the world.

Beneath our gleaming glass towers and spiraling condos lies the remnants of another history, one thousands of years old, but often overlooked. With the Canadian Native Centre's "Great Indian Bus Tours" and the Indigenous Knowledge Network run out of St. Michael's Hospital, this is changing.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) embarks on a bold new plan for quicker mental health recovery by bringing patients and community together in a redesign of their main Toronto site on Queen West that aims to break down barriers. It's the first of its kind in Canada too.

Roots of Empathy, a little school program that began in Toronto with a mission to "change the world one child at a time," has grown into an internationally successful program backed by no less than the Dalai Lama.

Rob Fraser is a driven nursing student who has taken on the challenge of introducing late-adopter nurses to new social media technologies that help them talk to each other and advance their profession.

Forget about selling candy bars and bake-sales -- new company FundTunes was co-founded by Toronto entrepreneur Eduardo Alvarez, a Queen Street entrepreneur and gym-owner, who wanted a more healthy way to raise quick cash for charities.

It's Net Change Week at MaRS and tech-biz thinker Don Tapscott is asking us to rethink how, well, just about everything operates. It's a new way of doing things, and Toronto's social innovators like Michelle Hamilton-Page at Toronto Public Health are helping lead the way.

Eduardo Castro's work with youth, mental health and addiction is all about building long-term relationships and his recent appointment to the Toronto Board of Health is his latest achievement in his civic-minded career.

Toronto is quickly becoming known as a city with a soft spot for meat. The local butcher shop is becoming more popular by the day, offering organic and local options to savvy clientele who are mindful of where their next meal comes from.