Our social enterprise, Alouette Growers, is an online farm market that delivers your order right to your door. Start by registering as a customer on the market website. Then open the STORE page and place orders with multiple farms for the products you want that week.  The ordering period is Wednesday 1:00 pm to midnight Saturday--we deliver it right to your door on the following Tuesday. 

You order directly from each farm from what they have available each week. The farms are all local, mostly Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, and mostly small-lot farms using ecological growing practices. You can read their story on the MEET YOUR PRODUCERS page. 

And its fresh, so fresh. Our farmers only pick what you order, really close to the delivery day. 

Alouette Growers is a great place to source your food because you are directly supporting local farmers and boosting local food security, The farmers keep 75% and we use the remainder for the online platform, transport fees and administrative costs. If there are any profits left, we use the funds to support free local community programs at the CEED Centre Neighbourhood House.

It's a great story because

• it tastes so good
• it keeps local money recirculating,
  
• keeps farmland in production,
  
•  helps conserve biodiversity,
  
• encourages farmers to produce and build up their capacity,
  
• shortens the supply chain,
• makes our community more resilient to financial and geopolitical shocks,
• supports local programs,
  
• features a Pay It Forward program for food insecure families.

And it's not just us that think so. Alouette Growers won 1st Place in the 2025 Maple Ridge Innovation Challenge in the Business to Consumer category.

So please hop on over to Alouette Growers and see for yourself.

Note
We only sell what our farmers can grow at different times of the season, so expect variety to increase with each month as Spring flows into Summer and Autumn. It is open from April 8 to mid-December.

The CEED Centre Society is pleased to announce that it is working with local farmers to create an online food market that will source exclusively from local Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows farms. You can order from multiple farms and have it delivered fresh right to your door. The website will feature a page for each farm where you can learn about its growing practices, philosophies and unique characteristics. Stay tuned for the launch of Alouette Growers this Spring. 
Of course, local food security has taken on added importance in these times of uncertainty. Help to grow the capacity of local food production by sourcing from people that grow food in your own communities. Increasing knowledge about the benefits of maintaining a healthy local microbiome is adding to the appeal of vegetables and fruits grown with ecologically sound practices, high nutritional density and fresh harvests.  
The main website will be www.alouettegrowers.ca. 
​

On Saturday, May 3, 2025, the CEED Centre will host a Children's Day Festival at the CEED Centre Neighbourhood House and Beckett Park. The Festival will celebrate Japanese Canadian culture with traditional crafts and family oriented activities, like Koi Nobori streamer making, origami and Japanese calligraphy. 

This year the Festival will also serve to inaugurate a permanent exhibit at the Centre called 'Seiko Udoku,'  "Remembering the Lost Legacy of the Japanese Canadian Farming Community in Maple Ridge." 

The inauguration ceremony will commence at 10:30, while the festival runs from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. 
A taiko drum performance will feature the duo NoriNori and Komori. 

Visit Memorial Peace Park on August 10, 2024, to receive a real treat. The CEED Centre Society is collaborating with Leslie Komori to host the Maple Ridge Bon Odori Japanese Canadian Festival. The subtitle is Okaeri-nasai: returning to our roots.

This is a performance festival featuring Japanese Canadian music, dance, and interactive activities for families. Taiko drum troupes with diverse musical styles are the main attraction. The Vancouver Miyake Taiko troupe will feature taiko participation. Then the Vancouver Okinawa Taiko troupe will showcase the drumming stylings characteristic of this tropical archipelago. Finally, the Nori Nori and Komori duo will perform contemporary pieces while the Otowa Ryu Dance Group acquaint us with traditional and folk dance. 

You won't want to miss the demonstration by the Vancouver Sumo Sundays Club, with their version of this traditional wrestling form.  And you get to participate in the Tanko Bushi or coal mining dance with instruction by Sensei Akemi Komori. 

At 1:00 pm, there will be an off-site tour of significant Nikkei figures at the nearby Maple Ridge Cemetery. And Linda Kawamoto Reid and the Maple Ridge Museum have created a brochure for self-guided tours of significant Nikkei sites around the City. 

For children, the kid's tent will offer an origami paper folding table and a seed bomb making table. Meanwhile, their parents can dress in yukata or kimono for the photo booth. 

On the surface, this festival is meant to showcase contemporary Canadian Japanese talent performing traditional and fusion arts. The deeper meaning of the event is to serve as the first official welcome home for the Nikkei (people of Japanese ancestry) that were forcibly removed from Maple Ridge in 1942 during WWII and were not allowed back for about two decades. While many from this era have passed on with time, their offspring across Canada have known that their roots lie in Maple Ridge. And this festival is one of many measures to restore a missing narrative from Maple Ridge history and to recognize the legacy of Nikkei from the area, who farmed on approximately 230 farms and comprised about 30% of the local population. We hope that these people will feel the warm welcome back home to their roots with this festival . 

The CEED Centre's project titled "​Remembering the Lost Legacy of the Japanese Canadian Farming Community in Maple Ridge" will further assist in restoring the narrative of this once thriving community once it opens in May 2025. 


Festival Schedule 11:00 am-3:00 pm
11:00am | Katzie First Nation Welcome and Opening Taiko Call 
11:30am-12:00pm | Vancouver Miyake Taiko (taiko participation included)
12:00pm-2:00pm | Kids Tent Activities
12:00pm-2:00pm | Kimono/Yukata dressing tent 
12:15pm | Vancouver Okinawa Taiko
1:00pm-2:00pm | Historical Tour of Significant Nikkei Figures at Maple Ridge Cemetery
1:00pm | Vancouver Sumo Sundays Club Demonstration
1:45pm-2:15pm | Nori Nori and Komori, Otowa Ryu Dance Group
2:15pm-2:30pm | Public Community Japanese Dance Instruction of Tanko Bushi (Coal Mining Dance) by Sensei Akemi Komori
2:30pm - 3:00pm | Maple Ridge Bon Odori

Our CEED Centre Farm Market resumes on May 30th and will be held every Thursday from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm until mid-September. The market itself will feature fresh produce from Triple Creek Farm, Yellow House Farm and Christian's farm. A hot dog stand run by volunteers is new this season. Like our little café, it is donation based and will be open from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm on the first Thursday of the month. The performance stage will feature a wider range of musicians, storytellers and poets this season, starting off with our favourite singer-songwriter, Paula Justus and guests. The market will also feature more of the Sewing CEEDling's artisan textile products, like shopping bags lined with upcycled plastic liners and more. So whether you come to grab your healthy dinner from the freshest produce available in town, or just come to listen to the performers and snack on cinnamon buns or the venerable hot dog, there is a community of people waiting to connect with you. 
Christian
​May 23, 2024

As you may have heard, the CEED Centre Society is working to revive the narrative around the Japanese Canadian farming community that once comprised roughly 30% of the Maple Ridge population in the early part of the 20th Century. Our building was constructed by that community to serve as an English language kindergarten. We are now working on cultural events as part of the process of casting light upon that community and creating a more welcoming Maple Ridge to returning people and their descendants. 
On August 10th, 2024, we plan to partner with members of the Lower Mainland Japanese Canadian community to stage a performance festival featuring contemporary artists. Our working title is Bon Odori--Okaeri-nasai.
To provide a compelling activity for festival attendees of all ages, we would like to host an origami table. Therefore, we seek people that enjoy teaching this paper folding art to others to participate in the festival, which will include musical and dance performances.  If you know how to fold cranes and other intriguing paper sculptures, please get in touch with us. 

Christian Cowley, executive director
April 23, 2024

​