🔦 In This Issue of Kingston Spotlight
🌻 On the Cover: Heads Down, Heavy With Seed
🌽 Husk on, or husk off?
🏠 There Are 22% More Apartments Available in Kingston Than a Year Ago
🏥 $3 Million for Napanee’s Hospital, Starting With the Nurse Call System
🌲 Eighteen More Acres at Lost Bay, and a 2,500 Hectare Target Behind It
🎸 960 Days in Critical Care, and Then a Bryan Adams Concert
⚾ The Kingston Colts Are Back From the World Series, Two Years Running
⛳ Six Years of One Golf Tournament, and $945,000 for Prostate Cancer Care
🎪 Paranormal Cirque Nightmare | Cataraqui Centre | to September 6
🎺 Nostalgic Sound Big Band | City Hall Amphitheatre | September 2
💼 Business Basics, with Kingston Economic Development | KFPL Central Branch | September 3
💬 Aging Well and Talking Cafe: MAID | Kingston East Community Centre | September 4
📚 Kingston Symphony Volunteers’ Book Fair | Symphony Warehouse | September 10 to 20
It’s gotten too long to include here in the summary! Click Events Calendar to see our list for the next few days.
Too long? Too short? About right? Tell us what you would like to see more of, and less of.
🔦 The Cover
🌻 On the Cover: Heads Down, Heavy With Seed
Forman Farms' hybrid sunflowers on Brewer's Mills Road, still drying down. The heads tip over so birds cannot reach the seed, which is destined to become bird feed. Photo: Les Cseh / kingstonspotlight.ca
I drove past this field on Brewer's Mills Road and assumed the sunflowers had simply given up. Forman Farms set me straight 🙂. These are a hybrid variety, and the heads are bred to tip face down so birds cannot get at the seed. They are still drying, not ready for the combine, and when they are, the crop goes out under contract to a company that makes bird feed. Sunflowers bred to keep birds off the seed, growing seed to feed birds. Forman Farms told me it "looked beautiful when the whole field was in full flower." I think it still looks striking.
🔦 Local Spotlight
🌽 Husk on, or husk off?
Add this to the list of topics to debate about corn. Settle it for us.
When you cook corn, is the husk on or off?
While you're here: voting for the Sweet Corn Guide is open. Seventeen local growers, where to buy from each one, and what to do with the husks when you get home.
📰 Kingston & Area Local News
🏠 There Are 22% More Apartments Available in Kingston Than a Year Ago
Kingston's waterfront, where 22 per cent more apartments are available than a year ago. Photo from RentCafe, taken earlier in the year.
If you have been hunting for a place in Kingston, there are more of them than there were. RentCafe's Q2 2026 report puts apartment availability up 22 per cent year over year, which it describes as widening the listing pool. The same report slides Kingston nine places to 12th on its national ranking of renter interest, down from 3rd last quarter, and that is the landlord's half of the same fact: more listings, more choice, less scramble. RentCafe's own read is that renter activity normalized quickly after an unusually strong rebound.
Read the full story at: RentCafe
🏥 $3 Million for Napanee's Hospital, Starting With the Nurse Call System
Lennox and Addington County General Hospital in Greater Napanee, where more than $3 million will go to nurse call, elevator, HVAC and medical gas systems. Kingstonist file image.
Lennox and Addington County General Hospital in Greater Napanee is getting $3,064,270 from Ontario's Health Infrastructure Renewal Fund, for nurse call, elevator, HVAC and medical gas upgrades. A nurse call system is how a patient reaches someone at two in the morning. In a release carried by Kingstonist, AK Sharma, the hospital's vice-president of finance and corporate services, thanked the province and the local MPP and named those four systems as what the money will fix. Ric Bresee, MPP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington, made the announcement, and Napanee's share is part of $266 million going to 126 hospitals.
Read the full story at: Kingstonist
🌲 Eighteen More Acres at Lost Bay, and a 2,500 Hectare Target Behind It
Lost Bay, in the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, where Ontario Nature's reserve now runs to 662 acres. Map data ©2026 Google.
Ontario Nature has added the 17.97 acre Jannen III property to its Lost Bay Nature Reserve near Gananoque, bringing it to 662 acres inside the Frontenac Arch UNESCO biosphere. The new parcel carries confirmed or likely habitat for 33 rare and at-risk species, the cerulean warbler, monarch butterfly and Blanding's turtle among them. In a release from Ontario Nature, executive director Andrés Jiménez Monge called it "the first step toward an ambitious goal: securing at least 2,500 hectares of habitat in our key priority areas by 2031." Chris Grooms of the Kingston Field Naturalists told the Whig-Standard that the point is the corridor rather than the acreage: the wider and quieter it stays, the safer wildlife feels moving through it.
Read the full story at: Ontario Nature
🏆 Community Champions
🎸 960 Days in Critical Care, and Then a Bryan Adams Concert
Susan and the care team who got her there, with Bryan Adams at Slush Puppie Place. The team had shirts printed reading Susan's Road Crew. Photo from Kingston Health Sciences Centre's Facebook page.
Susan has spent nearly three years, 960 days of them, in the intensive care unit at Kingston Health Sciences Centre. When her personal care assistant, Cheri Atkinson, heard Bryan Adams was coming to town, she had one thought, and KHSC quoted it on their own Facebook page: "We have to get Susan there." Months of physiotherapy built the strength for the night. Bergeron Clifford supplied the tickets, the care team had shirts printed reading Susan's Road Crew, and Susan, at her first concert ever, met Adams face to face at Slush Puppie Place. CKWS Global News Kingston put it on the news, and it is worth your two minutes.
Read the full story at: Kingston Health Sciences Centre
⚾ The Kingston Colts Are Back From the World Series, Two Years Running
The Kingston Colts juniors in Canada colours at the Junior League Baseball World Series in Taylor, Michigan. Photo via Sean Light.
Thirteen players between 8 and 14, coached by Sean Light in his first year with the team, won the Junior League Baseball Canada Region Tournament 10-3 over Alberta at Trois-Rivieres, then went to Taylor, Michigan to play for Canada at the Junior League Baseball World Series. Getting there once is a good season. Getting there two years running is a program. Mexico and Italy both had their number in the double knockout, the Colts played a consolation game against Tennessee, and that is the season wrapped. Kingston Baseball Association has them back in the fall.
Read the full story at: Kingstonist
⛳ Six Years of One Golf Tournament, and $945,000 for Prostate Cancer Care
Golfer and prostate cancer survivor John Raymond heads out to the course at Cataraqui Golf and Country Club, where 148 golfers played through heavy rain. Photo from uhkf.ca.
A hundred and forty-eight golfers played the sixth Power of Hope tournament at Cataraqui Golf and Country Club through heavy rain and soggy ground, and raised $205,000. That brings six years to $945,000, all of it going to prostate cancer care and the A. Britton Smith Q.C. Robotic Surgery Program at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, which now runs two da Vinci robots. Organizer Mike Laframboise, one of the first robotic prostate surgery patients there back in 2019, put it this way in a release from University Hospitals Kingston Foundation: "organizing this tournament is like paying the rent for me."
Read the full story at: University Hospitals Kingston Foundation
👀 Not subscribed? Here's what went by
Kingston Spotlight goes out twice a week, free, all Kingston and area. A few things from recent issues:
A Napanee farmer posted before her surgery, and mammogram referrals went from 50 a day to 300
Sarah Wynn had no lumps and no symptoms. Her post asking women over 40 to book a screening has been seen about half a million times.
Jackson did the hard part. Then Kingston showed up.
He was four when they found the tumour, and he had to learn to walk again. At 12, the Kingston Grenadiers made him their honorary captain and handed him a touchdown.
Kingston WritersFest is back and bigger, after nearly folding
The festival announced it was closing in January 2025. Neighbours and authors cleared the debt inside a month, and it is now booking Booker Prize winners.
Pickleball fever: how Kingston Pickleball Club built a community from scratch
From a private home in Reddendale with taped lines and portable nets, to their own indoor courts on Gardiners Road.
Subscribe at kingstonspotlight.ca and the next one lands in your inbox.
🆕 New Events In and Around Kingston
🎪 Paranormal Cirque Nightmare | Cataraqui Centre | to September 6
Paranormal Cirque Nightmare has its big top up in the Cataraqui Centre parking lot until September 6. Image from paranormalcirque.com.
There is a circus big top in the Cataraqui Centre parking lot, and what is under it is not for the kids. Paranormal Cirque Nightmare is a risqué horror show, this is the tour's first Canadian stop, and it sold well enough in advance that the run was extended to Sunday, September 6. Before you book: nobody under 13 gets in at all, under 17s need an adult over 21 with them, and photo ID is required to buy a ticket. Leave the costume at home, masks are not allowed either. Tickets at paranormalcirque.com.
🎺 Nostalgic Sound Big Band | City Hall Amphitheatre | September 2
A big band plays the City Hall amphitheatre during Downtown Kingston's Swingin' Summer series, which closes on September 2. Photo from downtownkingston.ca.
This one got smoked out. The band was booked for July 15 and lost the date to poor air quality, so Downtown Kingston is giving it back on Wednesday, September 2, free, at the City Hall amphitheatre. It closes Swingin' Summer for 2026, a season that has run every Wednesday since July 8. If you miss it, Kickin' It Country with Neil Carter lands at Springer Market Square on Friday, September 4, also free. Both are part of Live 365, the BIA's summer music series.
💼 Business Basics, with Kingston Economic Development | KFPL Central Branch | September 3
Kingston Frontenac Public Library's Central Branch on Johnson Street, where Kingston Economic Development runs a free Business Basics session on September 3. Photo from calendar.kfpl.ca.
Should you incorporate? What insurance do you actually need? Where is the grant money? Kingston Economic Development brings its Business Basics session to Kingston Frontenac Public Library's Central Branch on Thursday, September 3, free, and registration is still open, which means there is still room. It covers business structures and what each one commits you to, insurance, the bones of a business plan, and the supports, subsidies and grants you may not know exist. If that Thursday does not work, the same team runs Exploring Entrepreneurship at Central on Thursday, September 24. Register at calendar.kfpl.ca.
💬 Aging Well and Talking Cafe: MAID | Kingston East Community Centre | September 4
A Kingston Health Sciences Centre ethicist speaks on Medical Assistance in Dying at the Kingston East Community Centre on September 4, part of KFPL and Kingston Community Health Centres' Aging Well and Talking Cafe series. Image from calendar.kfpl.ca.
This one is full, and the wait list is open. David Campbell, an ethicist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, walks through the legislation that legalized medical assistance in dying, the arguments for and against extending it to mental illness, and what the data actually shows, at the Kingston East Community Centre on Friday, September 4. It is part of the Aging Well and Talking Cafe series from Kingston Frontenac Public Library and Kingston Community Health Centres, with an informal cafe afterwards run by Compassionate Communities Kingston. Two later sessions still have room: 3D printing basics on Wednesday, September 9, open now, and the Time Travelers Club on September 23, with registration opening Saturday, September 5. Wait list and details at calendar.kfpl.ca.
📚 Kingston Symphony Volunteers' Book Fair | Symphony Warehouse | September 10 to 20
Thousands of books across 45 categories fill the Kingston Symphony Warehouse for the volunteers' annual Book Fair, free every day but opening night. Photo via Kingston Symphony Association.
Thousands of books across 45 categories fill the Kingston Symphony Warehouse on Sir John A. Macdonald Blvd from Thursday, September 10 to Sunday, September 20, and every day but the first is free. This year there is a section devoted to books about dogs, which we did not know we needed, plus collectibles and some serious sci-fi and fantasy shelves. Opening night is $5 at the door. If you want first pick, Early Entry is $25 and capped at 50 tickets, sold online or at the door if any are left. It all goes to the Symphony's concerts and education programs. Details at kingstonsymphony.ca.
📅 Events Calendar
What’s happening in and around Kingston over the next few days
🏊 PA Day Recreation Programming | City community centres | September 1
🚲 Raffle in Support of SFCSC, prizes from Revell Ford | Southern Frontenac Community Services, Sydenham | Draw September 1 | 🔦 Read our story
🎺 Nostalgic Sound Big Band | City Hall Amphitheatre | September 2
🚒 Kingston Fire and Rescue Volunteer Recruitment Info Sessions | Joyceville Fire Station | August 31 and September 3
💼 Business Basics, with Kingston Economic Development | KFPL Central Branch | September 3
💬 Aging Well and Talking Cafe: MAID | Kingston East Community Centre | September 4
🎤 Kickin’ It Country with Neil Carter | Springer Market Square | September 4
🚗 12th Annual Limestone City Car Classic | Kingston Memorial Centre Fairgrounds | September 5 | 🔦 Read our story
🎪 Paranormal Cirque Nightmare | Cataraqui Centre parking lot | August 28 to September 6
🎓 University District Safety Initiative | University District | August 28 to September 13
🗓️ That is just the next few days. The full Kingston events calendar lives here.
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Email Les at [email protected]
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