Diana Grimaldos

Diana Grimaldos

2019 Leadership Award - Greater Toronto

Community Engagement Coordinator

Working Women Community Centre

Nominator Comments:

In over a decade of service with Working Women Community Centre, Diana has taken on a variety of leadership roles. But it was her role managing Working Women Community Centre’s flagship multicultural community garden during a critical period of change that prompted her colleagues to nominate her.

Diana’s challenge was to restructure the garden, located in a North York inner suburb, to reallocate plots of lands to better achieve food security and community-building for low-income newcomer groups. Diana navigated complicated power dynamics between established and grassroots community organizations, internal staff dynamics, landlord relationships and local residents who were marginalized and feeling disempowered.

She built relationships, listened to needs and dreams, and developed a shared strategy to move the garden forward to better meets its purpose and ambition.

“Diana’s ability to facilitate a diverse group, probe people’s motivations, celebrate shared successes, challenge the process and find consensus was amazing,” said one of her colleagues.

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