🌼 Those Roadside Lilies 🛝 A Playground for All 🥕 Free Summer Veggies 🏊 More Room to Swim 🗓️ Events | 🔦 July 27, 2026

The Cover

🌼 On the Cover: Our Wild Roadside Lilies

Local Spotlight

🔦 Several amazing local spotlight articles are coming up soon, including the Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival !

Kingston & Area Local News

🚴 Bayridge Drive Becomes an All-Ages, All-Abilities Cycling and Transit Route
🏊 Kingston Looks to Open Up More Places to Swim Downtown

Community Champions

🛝 Kingston’s Jumpstart Inclusive Playground Opens at Shannon Park
🥕 Mutual Aid Gardens Kicks Off Its Free Veggie Markets for the Season
🧍 A Rural Seniors Strength Program Has Reached Nearly 300 Across Nine Communities

New Events In and Around Kingston

🎵 TONIGHT!!! One Ground One Sound, a Benefit for Venezuela | The Spire | July 27
🏥 Health Adventures Camp | Canadian Museum of Health Care | July 27 to 31 and August 10 to 14
🚲 United Way KFL&A MEGABike Community Ride | Springer Market Square | July 29
🎆 South Frontenac’s Delayed Canada Day Fireworks | The Point Park, Sydenham | July 31
🎤 Bad Influence Comedy Tour | The Caesar Company | August 3

Events Calendar

It’s gotten too long to include here in the summary! Click Events Calendar to see our list for the next few days.

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Open one of Sarita Machado's Stagecoach Charcuterie boxes and you won't find a snack, you'll find an edible adventure. Think salami roses, a hidden honey jar with its own little spoon, and a packing style so tight one customer dropped a box and every piece stayed put.

ICYMI: We went behind the lid with the Sydenham maker to see how she turns local food into edible art. Read the full spotlight on Best Eats Ontario East

Those cheerful orange trumpets lining the ditches right now are tawny day lilies, and they are not really wildflowers. They came over from Asia generations ago as a garden flower, then escaped: they spread by tough underground roots, and even from a broken-off piece, so one old homestead becomes a whole roadside of orange. They dig up easily if you want a clump of your own (be sure of your ID, and mind the roadside), but they will spread, and Ontario Parks lists them as invasive, so for your own yard a native Michigan lily gives you that summer orange without the takeover. And yes, the flowers and buds are supposed to be edible for people (check!), though every part is toxic to cats.

Riding a bike across Kingston’s west end just got a lot less white-knuckle. On July 15 the City cut the ribbon on the finished Bayridge Drive corridor, a continuous all-ages-and-abilities route from Henderson Boulevard to Cataraqui Woods Drive. Built in two phases between 2023 and this spring with more than $6.9 million in federal funding, it adds off-road pathways and cycle tracks, intersections with bike signals and protected-intersection features, and island bus platforms with new shelters. The City of Kingston built the design around residents, more than 90 percent of whom said they wanted to bike along Bayridge. The route also forms part of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, and it is one leg of a planned north-south connection running from Creekford Road to Front Road and into downtown.

Read the full story at: City of Kingston

Kingston is a waterfront city, and on a hot afternoon it shows: the crowds packing Breakwater Park and the Gord Downie Pier are proof of just how much appetite there is for a downtown swim. The good news is that the City is working to give people more places to take one. It has already revitalized the bathhouse at Richardson Beach and pointed swimmers toward Grass Creek Park, and Councillor Conny Glenn told Kingstonist that council is looking further ahead to the Confederation Basin Promenade Project, which would build on the existing rock shoreline with an enhanced entry, more seating, and water access made for swimming, with construction anticipated in 2027. For now, staff are talking through public-safety steps ahead of the summer long weekends, so everyone can enjoy the water.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

The playground we have been following since the groundbreaking is finally open. On July 24, Kingston’s first fully accessible playground opened for play beside the Rideau Heights Community Centre at Shannon Park. The Jumpstart Inclusive Playground cost more than $1.3 million, with rubber safety surfacing, ramps, and equipment built for a wide range of mobility and sensory needs, so more kids can play side by side. It is the work of pediatric occupational therapist Rachel Doornekamp and the Inclusive Play Project, who spent more than three years rallying donors, foundations, and every level of government, backed by Canadian Tire Jumpstart, the City of Kingston, and a Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign that chipped in a record $232,286. The official grand opening comes Saturday, September 12.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

Free vegetables, no strings, five times between now and October. Mutual Aid Gardens, a volunteer working group of OPIRG Kingston that grew out of the pandemic-era mutual aid network, has started its free veggie markets for the season. About ten core volunteers and a sixty-plus messaging network tend four plots, two in Gananoque including Root Radical CSA Farm, plus Friendship Park and Oak Street Park here in Kingston, with a weekly Thursday drop-in at Oak Street. Surplus lettuce recently went to Feed the People at Belle Park. The whole idea is simple: better access to fresh food, and neighbours getting to know each other over it. The next market is Sunday, August 9 on the Firelane between 106 and 140 Compton Street.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

What keeps rural seniors strong and out of the hospital turns out to be a mix of squats and Scattergories. A grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area let kinesiologist Katherine Taylor, of the Rural Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Allied Health Team at Kingston Community Health Centres, expand well beyond her fast-filling Napanee classes. The funding hired facilitator Carly Corrigan, who now runs free weekly programs across nine rural communities, including Sydenham, Newburgh, and Arden. Each two-hour session pairs the Otago strength-and-balance exercises that help prevent falls with a full hour of coffee, conversation, games like life-size Yahtzee, and health talks. Close to 300 people, average age around 72, have taken part, and Taylor’s data now feeds a Queen’s University PhD aimed at making the model permanent across Ontario.

Read the full story at: Community Foundation for Kingston & Area

This is the benefit we have been counting down to. One Ground One Sound lands at The Spire, 82 Sydenham Street, on Monday, July 27, and every dollar goes straight to people on the ground in Venezuela after the recent earthquakes. Organiser Gia Nahmens, of Cantabile Choirs, grew up on the coast the quakes hit, so she asked world class musicians, including Kingston locals to show up, and they did: a headlining set from the Levon Ichkhanian group, with singers Larissa Koniuk, Geoffrey Sirett, Tim Stiff, Anna Sudac, Gisèle Dalbec-Szczesniak, Jill Vitols, and Mauricio Montecinos, plus a few surprise guests. Nobody on that stage is being paid, so every dollar reaches the families who need it. Grab your $20 tickets at Donorbox.

ICYMI, here’s the full story.

If your five-to-twelve-year-old has ever wanted to make fake snot (👈 don’t judge me, this is directly what the museum stated 🙃) for educational purposes, this is their week. The Canadian Museum of Health Care at 32 George Street runs its Health Adventures day camp from Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31, with a second week August 10 to 14. Over the week campers examine real bones and x-rays, peer through microscopes, mix up herbal remedies, and run a Teddy Bear Hospital, all while learning how healers have cared for people through history. It is $150 per child, with morning sessions for the younger ages and afternoons for the older ones. Registration details are on the museum’s events page.

A thirty-seat bike is about to roll through downtown Kingston, and you are invited to grab a seat. On Wednesday, July 29, United Way KFL&A brings its MEGABike to Springer Market Square, where teams take hour-long turns pedalling together through downtown, with every dollar raised staying local. Around the ride there is the Community Cruiser, live music from 98.3 FLY FM and local bands including Silver Honey, food from Otter Creek Kitchen and Food Truck, Squeezy Lemonade, and Kona Ice, plus family games hosted by BGC South East. It is free and open to all ages. To register a team or sponsor, email [email protected]. More details at United Way KFL&A.

Rain does not get the last word on Canada Day. South Frontenac’s fireworks, washed out on July 1, finally go up on Friday, July 31 at The Point Park in Sydenham. Better still, the Township of South Frontenac is running free shuttle buses from ten locations around the township, so you can leave the car at home and just enjoy the show. The full pickup list and schedule are on the township’s page. Get the shuttle details at the Township of South Frontenac.

Comedy fans, this one is strictly for the grown-ups. The Bad Influence Comedy Tour brings an 18-plus stand-up night to The Caesar Company at 177 Princess Street on Monday, August 3. Headliner Nelson Mayer is a Winnipeg comic who has toured Canada, the United States, and Europe, with festival stops at Just for Laughs Vancouver and the Los Angeles International Comedy Festival, where he was named Best of the Fest. He is joined by fellow Winnipegger Kevin Dobbie, host Papa G, and special guest Drea Omer, a fast-rising Indigenous comedian who has toured Canada and Los Angeles with SKoden, Stoodis, Stand Up! and No Reservations! Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Get tickets through Jump Comedy.

🎵 TONIGHT!!! One Ground One Sound, a Benefit for Venezuela  |  The Spire, 82 Sydenham St  |  July 27

🎒 United Way KFL&A Backpack Program  |  United Way office, 417 Bagot St & Cataraqui Centre  |  July 27 to August 14

🏥 Health Adventures Camp  |  Canadian Museum of Health Care, 32 George St  |  July 27 to 31, and August 10 to 14

⛳ 28th Annual Rose of Hope Golf Tournament  |  Cataraqui Golf & Country Club  |  July 28

🚲 United Way KFL&A MEGABike Community Ride  |  Springer Market Square  |  July 29

🎆 South Frontenac’s Delayed Canada Day Fireworks  |  The Point Park, Sydenham  |  July 31

✊🏾 Emancipation Day Flag-Raising and Community Art Exhibition  |  Confederation Park  |  August 1

🎼 Indian Classical Music: Vocal and Tar Shehnai  |  The Spire  |  August 1

🦸 Rad Kids Comic and Art Con  |  Nexus  |  August 1

🎤 Bad Influence Comedy Tour  |  The Caesar Company, 177 Princess St  |  August 3

Festivals, free weekly programs, museum seasons and every farmers’ market we know about, all in one place and updated with every issue. See the full Kingston Events Calendar, and bookmark it while you are there.

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