A baby coyote showed up in my backyard. Here's who I called.

👷 Shovels went in this week at 1 Parkside Drive, on a complex that will hold an eight-lane 25-metre pool 🏊‍♀️, a separate therapy and teaching pool, and a multi-sport space for basketball, pickleball and fitness. The arches are going up now. The old UxPool stays open the whole time, which matters when you're North Durham's only indoor pool. Swimming starts spring 2027, the gym follows that summer.

→ Read the Township's project update · Source: Durham Post

Over on Connery Crescent: a fully accessible playground with slides, climbers and sensory play, a splash pad with both overhead and ground spray, outdoor fitness equipment, shade and accessible seating, and pathways that connect right through to the waterfront trail. There's also a nature outlook planted specifically to support threatened birds and bats 🦇. The design came straight out of a month of neighbourhood feedback last February. Work runs into the fall.

→ See the City's project page · Source: durhamregion.com

Melanie Banfield grew up in Durham and spent years working with kids and adults with disabilities before she opened a public multi-sensory room, because you can't walk into a hospital and ask to borrow theirs. Families drive in from Kingston and London. Her line on it: "It's not a treat; it's therapy." The Region named one 2026 Accessibility Award winner in every one of the eight municipalities, and the full list is worth a read.

→ See all eight 2026 Accessibility Award winners

At 409 Centre Street South, federal and provincial money is converting it into a three-storey residence: 14 affordable units and 16 geared to income, and 28 of the 30 will be barrier-free. Durham Region is putting in the largest share of a roughly $10 million total. Doors open spring 2027.

→ Read about the project on Housing Durham · Source: Ontario Chronicle

All ten heritage buildings out on Island Road are connected by proper accessible paths, where most of them used to mean a walk across the grass. There are new ramps too, including into the 1860 church. A $30,000 provincial grant did the heavy lifting, topped up by 100 Men of Scugog and the Lake Scugog Historical Society. Some of those buildings date back to 1845.

→ Read the Township's announcement · Source: durhamregion.com

I told you back in July that Brock council found the money rather than push it to 2027. The fence goes up Monday. It's 26,650 square feet for the big dogs and a separate 2,600 for the small ones, with double gates so nobody makes a break for it. Benches and bins come after.

→ Source: Durham Post

Council expanded the Community Improvement Plan on August 10, which in plain terms means any property in Clarington can now apply for grant money, not just the designated downtowns. There's roughly $1.2 million in the pot plus $2 million from developers earmarked for additional dwelling units. It covers storefront facelifts, affordable rentals, agri-tourism and cleaning up brownfields.

→ See Clarington's CIP page · Source: durhamregion.com

It's one of eleven Durham non-profits sharing just under $500,000 from the Region's Thriving Communities Fund, announced yesterday. The money goes to operating costs and building capacity, which is the unglamorous stuff that keeps the doors open and the programs running.

→ Visit Ajax Public Library · Source: insauga.com

Alexandra Drews heard that people have been leaving local emergency departments with nothing on their feet. So she put a bin on her porch. This isn't a hospital program, it's a neighbour and a couple of friends: one of them works at Lakeridge and knows a social worker who will take the shoes in. Men's and women's, every size. Gently used is genuinely fine, and don't clean them first, she's asked for them exactly as they are and does that part herself. Some are headed to Peterborough Regional Health Centre as well. The bin is at 933 Ridge Valley Dr in Oshawa and you can drop off any time. She's running it a couple more weeks, so the closet dig can wait for the weekend.

The food bank at 387 Simcoe St S is getting a proper kitchen built, and the build still needs appliances, materials and trade labour. Anyone who swings a hammer for a living can genuinely move this one. They've also got an online registry going for after-school program supplies, which feeds 35 kids.

→ Simcoe Hall's kitchen campaign

CBC re-broadcasts the farewell concert for its 10th anniversary; Ajax Centre for the Arts puts it on the big screen with a cash bar. No tickets — bring something non-perishable for Feed the Need instead.

→ ajax.ca

State and Main's dog-friendly patio on Taunton; 10% of the afternoon goes back to the rescue, alumni pups included. More above.

Fiddlestix closes Bowmanville's series at Rotary Park; Davey Boy closes Brooklin's at Grass Park. Both 7pm, free, final night.

Whitby: Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Civic Park. Pickering: Zootopia 2, Rick Johnson Memorial Park, activities from 6. Both free, dusk.

Closing night of the Newcastle series, Community Hall Parkette. Rain or shine.

Last of four in Clarington's new outdoor movie series, Garnet B. Rickard ball diamond.

→ clarington.net

The doors opened Wednesday, after a couple of soft-opening days to work the kinks out. The name is the French hello you save for people you're actually close to, which tells you most of what they're going for. Built, in their words, on love, hard work and the hope of a place where neighbours end up around the same table. Open 8:30 to 3, Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays.

More than a hundred kinds of candy, sold by weight, mix and match. Margret Kizza arrived in Port Perry three years ago as a personal support worker, fell for the town, and got the idea on a trip to Germany. She talked her husband Ronald Magala, an engineer, into building it with her. "People don't just come in to buy candy," she says. "They stay to chat, share stories and connect with us."

Pure vegetarian South Indian: dosas, idlis, vadas, filter coffee. Opened Wednesday last week, their third location after Scarborough and downtown Toronto, and the first one in Durham.

Tucked in behind Colonel Sam Drive, a short walk from where Oshawa builds cars, there's a coastal wetland most people drive past without ever knowing it's there.

Second Marsh just landed $1,008,460 from the province to put it right. The work runs four years, and CLOCA is doing it alongside Ducks Unlimited Canada, the Friends of Second Marsh, and the Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority.

The money is earmarked for species at risk, and that list is worth reading slowly. The Least Bittern, a heron so secretive you can stand in a marsh and never once see one. The Blanding's turtle, which can live seventy years and wears what looks like a permanent smile. And the American eel, which hatches out in the Sargasso Sea and somehow finds its way here.

Add the $1.6 million the Canada Water Agency put in earlier and there's now more than $2.6 million going into a single marsh in Oshawa.

→ Source: Durham Radio News