Village Media Bulletin: October 2025 Update

🎃 Happy Halloween!

As we move through another exciting month at Village Media, we’re proud to share updates, celebrate wins and highlight the incredible work happening across our network. Let’s get into it!

Village moves 🌟

Welcome

Two new Villagers joined our team this month:

GuelphToday community support specialist Cristian Henriquez
Village Media platform team specialist Joel Rodgers

Welcome! 👏

Our communities showed their Hearts for Hospice 💛

The SooToday Cares team visited ARCH Hospice to present a $5000 cheque to the ARCH team for the local hospice winning the SooToday SPACES Hearts for Hospice community challenge | Jasmyn Rowley

We recently wrapped up an exciting few weeks of friendly competition for our first-ever SPACES community challenge, all in the name of supporting local hospice care.

The Hearts for Hospice Community Challenge saw 13 cities across our footprint rallying on SPACES to cast their votes for their local hospices, with the community that garnered the most votes receiving a $5,000 donation.

After weeks of voting and thousands of people joining SPACES to support their communities, the results were in: ARCH Hospice in Sault Ste. Marie was declared the winner and received $5,000 to help its hospice care.

Beyond the competition, the campaign highlighted the power of community spirit and helped raise awareness for the compassionate care hospices provide across the regions we serve.

TorontoToday turns one! 🥳

On October 23, the TorontoToday team and loyal readers gathered to celebrate TorontoToday’s first birthday at Dark Horse Espresso Bar.

And what a year it’s been! From day one, TorontoToday has been dedicated to connecting readers to the stories and people that comprise the fabric of downtown Toronto.

The team of trusted journalists led the coverage on the City of Toronto’s controversial “bubble zone” bylaw, were the first to cover a west end cafe’s dispute with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency over the sale of Vegemite, spurring a saga that led the Australian prime minister to weigh in and followed rent strikes and neighbourly disputes to make sure their readers were informed about what was happening in their backyards.

Congratulations to everyone at TorontoToday! Thank you for your first year of service and here’s to many more.

Community members joined the TorontoToday team to celebrate its first anniversary

Sault Ste. Marie celebrates milestone Community Builders Awards 🏆

Winners, sponsors and guests attended the fifth annual SooToday Community Builders Awards reception at The Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre on Oct. 9 / Kenneth Armstrong, SooToday

On October 9, SooToday hosted its fifth annual Community Builders Awards, presented by Heritage Home Hardware, honouring outstanding individuals and groups whose work improves Sault Ste. Marie for all.

The anniversary event marked SooToday’s biggest celebration of changemakers, with winners from the past five years joining this year’s awards reception to honour the next wave of community builders.

The 2025 winners were celebrated for their visionary leadership, service and lasting community impact. You can read more about this year’s inspiring winners here.

TimminsToday knocks it out of the park ⚾️

TimminsToday, Tourism Timmins and Skoser Merch fundraising t-shirt collab as seen on Sportsnet Blue Jays Central!

Skoser Merch printing the "He Hit it All the Way to Timmins"

Since the summer, TimminsToday editor Maija Hoggett expected the Jays to be in the World Series. But Timmins attracting the national spotlight at the World Series (beyond Jamie Campbell's regular shoutouts) was not on her 2025 Bingo card.

Striking while the iron was hot, TimminsToday, Tourism Timmins and Skoser Merch collaborated to create a limited edition “He Hit it All the Way to Timmins” t-shirt in support of the oncology department of Timmins and District Hospital.

They far exceeded their original goal of selling 60 shirts and are working on finalizing orders now and will soon be able to tally the total raised for their local hospital.

The fundraiser had some high-profile supporters, with Jamie Campbell sharing the shirt on-air on Blue Jays Central before and after Game 1 of the World Series and Ron MacLean sharing it on Hockey Night in Canada.

Timmins has long been known as a community that knows how to rally and they have certainly lived up to their reputation. This grassroots campaign has hundreds of people proudly wearing Timmins across their chest, showing their love of the Jays and having a tangible way to support the hospital's oncology department.

NDP leader stops by the Closer Look studio

Marit Stiles on the Closer Look podcast

Marit Stiles was recently in Sault Ste. Marie and made some time for Frisco and Scott, hopping on the Closer Look podcast.

Stiles spoke out on the charges against MPP Chris Scott and also had some things to say about The Trillium's latest scoop surrounding the Ford government's controversial Skills Development Fund.

For more, check out closerlookpodcast.ca