Just a few years ago, Omemee content creator Sasha Harrison was living a very different life than the one she’s living now.

In those years, Harrison learned how to use tools to transform spaces on a budget, created her own DIY furniture blueprints, and has made steady progress towards her dream home.

On top of that, she has crafted meaningful relationships with local businesses, garnered more than 51,000 Instagram followers and over 34,000 on TikTok, raised thousands of dollars for local organizations, and has inspired a community of people to take a chance on themselves — and all while raising her two young children.

Though social media has a way of making life look glamorous, Harrison hasn’t always had it easy along the way. But just as her social media platform inspires thousands of people, so too can the life lessons she’s learned while pursuing her dreams.

One step at a time

In 2020, Harrison and her young family moved to their Omemee property to give her husband, Scott, the space to grow his diesel repair business, which would fund their ultimate dream of buying out his family’s three-generation dairy farm.

But, with everything going into the business and the farm, there was nothing left in their budget to fix up their own home.

“I realized just because we’re investing so much into the farm, that there was no way I was going to get the house of my dreams unless I made it happen myself,” says Harrison, who, until making that decision, had never used power tools before.

With an “outdated” house and a shop which needed an “absolute overhaul,” that dream house was not any easy project to begin — and continues to be a work in progress.

“We were optimistic, but it was and still is overwhelming,” she says. “There were a lot of elements to this property that needed a lot of work.”

Despite that, she took on one project at a time, first cleaning out and designing the repair shop and re-doing the entryway in the house, before it “snowballed” into her first build with a patio area outside the shop.

“Then, I did the kids’ room, our room, and then the laundry room — which was a bigger project,” she says. “It’s been a lot of work and it’s a constant grind but as soon as we get done one thing, we ask what we are working on next.”

It’s okay to do something you’re passionate about and get paid for it

Before changing careers and choosing to stay at home to focus on getting their new house to feel like a home, Harrison was working on call as a nurse and program coordinator at VON Assisted Living in Peterborough.

As she worked on a few projects around the home, and as her social media presence grew from spotlighting local businesses during the early days of the pandemic, there came a point when Harrison felt “lost in the thick of it” and was unsure what would come next.

“I remember sitting down at the table with my husband asking, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ and ‘Who am I?'” she recalls. “I felt like I had lost everything I was, and everything I had built with my nursing career.”

She recalls her husband telling her find whatever it is that she’s passionate about and make that her career. Between that encouragement and seeing his “zest for life” in farming, she was inspired.

“I realized it’s okay to do something that you’re passionate about and get paid for it,” she says. “I think a lot of people, like I did, think they can do the things they like on the weekend and have a separate nine-to-five job. But life doesn’t have to be like that. You can make it whatever you want it to be.”

With that realization, she monetized the love she had for design by registering her content creation businesses and sought sponsorships from local businesses so she could continue sharing her budget-friendly builds and designs.

Failure is an incredible opportunity for learning and building

Unlike a lot of influencers, Harrison’s feed is not perfectly curated with posts that show off nothing but her successes. She also shows off her vulnerabilities and her failures — like when she dented the shop the first time she used a skid steer, or when she gets in over her head with a project.

Though Harrison’s not afraid of her failures now, she didn’t always feel so comfortable embracing them, especially when beginning as a new business.

“I remember feeling so nervous and so scared about doing something on my own and just failing,” she says. “I think that’s the biggest fear you have as a business owner. You fail so many times, but those failures are incredible opportunities for learning and building and then, after a while, that fear of failure just sits in the background.”

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When people project negativity, that’s something that’s going on in their life

And as with anyone who makes their career online, Harrison faces her share of negativity from strangers on the internet and outside the community, whether it’s gendered assumptions that her husband is the brains and brawn behind her builds, backlash about letting her children assist in the projects, or even just generally about her appearance.

“I don’t love social media,” she points out. “I love when it can be used for inspiring people, but sometimes it can be a really negative space. I think I’m just sensitive and I care so much about other people that it really hurt me to think that somebody would want to hurt me like that.”

While in the past, Harrison has gone through “peaks and valleys” of being affected by hurtful commentary, having occasionally distanced herself from TikTok, her years in the industry have shown her that the cruelties are not really about her.

“I see it in a different way now and I think that’s what makes it a little bit easier,” she says. “When people project negativity, I think that’s something that’s going on in their life, where maybe they feel they’re not in a great space, and I feel bad for them.”

The most beautiful thing we have in life is the connection to other people

Everything that Harrison has used on her DIY journey has been purchased locally, and all sponsorship money she receives goes right back into investing in other local businesses.

After getting her first sponsorship from Monaghan Lumber Specialties, Harrison continues to work with them. While other businesses often assume that, as a woman, she doesn’t know what she is talking about or is shopping for her husband, she notes Monaghan Lumber has been “100 per cent supportive” in her visions.

“I’m so grateful for that relationship,” she says. “I think that our community trust in me because of the people that I work with — they all have wonderful customer service and they’re good human beings.”

Other companies she has worked with include Lindsay Buick GMC, Kitchen Depot, Kennedy’s Appliances and Electronic Store, Horlings Garden Centre, Johnston’s Greenhouse and Landscaping, and many others.

Her platform has also been instrumental in campaigns for businesses supporting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peterborough, community food drives, and YES Shelter for Youth and Families.

“I’m very fortunate to have a platform,” she says. “We definitely do not take that for granted. I think that’s pretty special that we can see our community come together in this way.”

Harrison has recently been working behind the scenes on social media management for other businesses. Though at first she didn’t think she’d enjoy it, she’s finds now that it opens up a different kind of creativity within her.

“People are often so critical of themselves, but I find that I can see from the outside how many beautiful souls are working with each other to make that entire entity work,” she says. “It’s super inspiring and it fills my heart right up to be able to show that side of their business.”

Between connecting with local businesses and now working behind the scenes with them, to her love of sharing inspiration and tips on her platforms, it all comes back to one of her greatest passions.

“I love connecting with other humans and learning about their story and being a part of other people’s lives,” she says. “I think the most beautiful thing we have in life is those connections with other people.”

For more information about Sasha Harrison and to keep up to date on her latest projects, visit sashaharrisondiyanddesign.com and follow her on Instagram and TikTok.

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Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & Kawartha Region (PKR) is “flipping” for Earth Day and inviting community members to take on a project that breathes new life into an old piece of furniture.

The organization, in partnership with Chemong Home Hardware Building Centre in Peterborough, has announced “The Big Flip,” a furniture restoration contest in honour of Earth Day on April 22. The Kawarthas-wide event aims to promote sustainability by inspiring residents to reimagine and revive used furniture to keep it out of the landfills.

“We would be thrilled to get as many entries as possible — my personal goal is over 30,” says Natalie Raponi, sponsorship and events co-ordinator for Habitat for Humanity PKR.

“The best thing that could happen from this event is that more people would start to consider giving new life to existing furniture pieces instead of throwing them away,” Raponi told kawarthaNOW. “There are so many incredible ways to restore, refinish, and reimagine used pieces in order to keep them out of landfills and contribute to a circular economy.”

Each year, close to one million tons of furniture waste ends up in Canadian landfills, according to Habitat for Humanity PKR. Biodegradable parts of furniture, such as textiles and wood, will degrade but they release methane gas into the atmosphere. Non-biodegradable parts of furniture, such as plastic and metals, will last in the landfill and can leach harmful chemicals.

The Big Flip contest involves choosing a used piece of furniture and taking a “before” photo with the piece, and documenting with one picture the process of “flipping” the furniture. Flipping can involve, but is not limited to, painting, restoring, and reupholstering the piece. Once finished, participants then snap a photo of themselves with the final products.

To participate, visit www.thebigflip.ca and make a submission between April 1 and 30. The contest is open to residents of the city and county of Peterborough, the City or Kawartha Lakes, and the Haliburton Highlands area.

Raponi said community members can consider checking out Habitat for Humanity’s Restores for suitable pieces to refinish.

“Our Habitat for Humanity ReStores are like hidden treasure troves waiting to be discovered. Often, you just need a little imagination and some good old elbow grease to transform these gems into something extraordinary.”

“If more people get interested in flipping furniture instead of buying new, the better it is for the environment. Plus, every purchase from our ReStores and membership to the (Peterborough) Tool Library helps build safe, decent, and affordable homes right here in Peterborough and the Kawartha region. So that’s a win-win-win.”

The Big Flip contest has two categories that will each have a winner. The “Designer’s Choice” winner will be chosen by Sonja Sanderson, owner of Birchview Design, and her team of interior designers. They will score entries using the following criteria: 40 per cent creativity and originality, 30 per cent usability, and 30 per cent transformation.

The “People’s Choice” category will be chosen after the contest ends by online votes cast between May 1 and May 8 on The Big Flip website.

Each winner will receive a Fusion Mineral Paint prize pack, a one-year membership to the Peterborough Tool Library, and a $500 gift card to Chemong Home Hardware Building Centre.

“We are excited to host The Big Flip furniture flipping contest in honour of Earth Day,” said Susan Zambonin, Habitat for Humanity PKR executive director, in a media release.

“This event aligns with our mission of building a sustainable future and empowers our community to positively impact the environment. We can’t wait to see the creativity and innovation that participants bring to the contest.”

Habitat for Humanity PKR is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to mobilize volunteers and community partners in building affordable housing and promoting affordable homeownership. Habitat gives a “hand-up” not a “hand-out” to lower income families by offering no down payment and geared to income monthly payments.

The organization operates three home improvement retail stores — the ReStores — selling donated new and used appliances, furniture, kitchens, building materials and home supplies. Habitat for Humanity ReStores play an integral part in Habitat’s mission by providing financial support for its work.

In 2023, Habitat for Humanity PKR diverted 331,730 items from landfills from purchases and donations made through its Peterborough North, Peterborough South, and Lindsay ReStores.

If you see emergency vehicles and people who appear to be injured at Fleming College’s Sutherland Campus in Peterborough on Tuesday morning (March 12), don’t be concerned.

Students in multiple programs at the college will be participating in a mass-casualty event simulation at the campus off Brealey Drive.

“The exercise is designed to mimic the chaos and urgency of a real-world disaster,” reads a media release from Fleming College. “Students will be challenged to apply their skills in triage, emergency management, and communication.”

Up to 80 students will be involved in the exercise, including students in Fleming’s pre-service fighter education and training and paramedic and pre-health sciences programs. Some students will be wearing makeup to appear injured or distressed, and Fleming’s emergency vehicles will also be on site.

The exercise is expected to run all morning long, with the Oak parking lot, parts of the B and D wings, and other areas around the Sutherland Campus closed to the rest of the campus while the exercise takes place.

Staff, students, and visitors are asked to follow the posted signage and follow any detours or parking lot closures that may be in place.

It will soon be easier for residents of North Kawartha Township to get in-person access to provincial government services, including driver’s licences and health cards.

On Monday (March 11), the Ontario government announced the village of Apsley is one of six rural northern communities that will be getting a ServiceOntario mobile service centre.

“Previously residents in North Kawartha would have to travel an average of 90 kilometres round trip to visit a ServiceOntario location,” says Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith in a media release. “The provincial government is committed to ensuring all of Ontario has access to government services they need, and this is one more step towards that promise.”

The mobile centre will deliver in-person access to services to the communities of MacTier, Burk’s Falls, Apsley, Denbigh, Whitney, and Moose Deer Point First Nation. The service is now available in MacTier and Burk’s Falls, with the expansion into the remaining four communities including Apsley taking place by April.

The mobile service centre is accessible and offers the following services in both English and French: driver’s licences; vehicle permits and plates; stickers for commercial vehicles; accessible parking permits; driver and vehicle records; health card and insurance (OHIP); organ and tissue donation; birth, marriage, and death; photo card; apostille/authentication of documents; fishing, hunting, and camping; housing and property; and taxes.

The schedule and location of the ServiceOntario mobile service centre in Apsley has not yet been announced, but the information will be available at ontario.ca/page/serviceontario-mobile-service-centres when the service launches in Apsley by early April.

The Ontario government is providing the City of Peterborough with $1,880,000 in funding as a “reward” for the city exceeding its 2023 housing target.

The funding comes from the Building Faster Fund, a three-year $1.2 billion program announced in 2023 that is designed to encourage municipalities to address the housing supply crisis by providing funding to municipalities that have reached at least 80 per cent of their provincially assigned housing target for the year, with increased funding for municipalities that exceed their target.

The announcement, made by the municipal affairs and housing minister’s parliamentary assistant Matthew Rae in Peterborough on Monday (March 11), is one of a series of similar announcements from the Ontario government over the past few weeks.

Other municipalities that have received funding to date through the Building Faster Fund include Toronto ($114 million), Brampton ($25.5 million), Milton ($8 million), Brantford ($3.1 million), Whitchurch-Stouffville ($2.6 million), St. Catharines ($2.3 million), Welland ($1.72 million), Belleville ($1.24 million), and Chatham-Kent ($440,000).

Municipalities can direct funding from the Building Faster Fund toward housing-enabling infrastructure and other related costs that support community growth.

In August 2023, the Ontario government assigned housing targets to 50 municipalities including Peterborough as part of a provincial plan to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Once the head of councils pledged to achieve their municipalities’ housing targets, they became eligible for the Building Faster Fund and were also given strong mayor powers, which include allowing mayors to propose housing-related bylaws and pass them with the support of one-third of councillors.

For the City of Peterborough, the provincial government assigned a total housing target of 4,700 by 2031, including a target of 345 housing starts in 2023, 392 in 2024, and 470 in 2025.

On January 12, the city announced it had exceeded the 2023 housing target by issuing permits to start construction on 435 housing units last year. However, according to the media release from the provincial government announcing the $1.88 million in funding for Peterborough, the city broke ground on a total of 506 new housing units last year.

In the age of social media, remote learning and work, and increasingly living online, it can never hurt to get a refresher on how best to interact with people in the physical world.

That’s why the Fleming College Student Administrative Council (SAC) in Peterborough has launched an educational series all about manners. Accessible through SAC’s social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, Manners with Muhammad is a series of videos educating on social etiquette in various public settings around campus.

“College is a big networking place and, with social development, this series on manners is going to build those relationships a lot easier,” says Jacques Graveline, SAC’s board chair. “If you’re an extrovert versus and introvert, you have to be able to connect somehow and manners are a good way to do that.”

In his role, Graveline represents the voice of the students at Fleming College and listens to suggestions and feedback directly. The non-profit corporation serves to meet the social and political needs of students by enhancing experiences through activities, events, and services.

“Part of our four pillars (of support and services) is social development,” says Graveline. “We’re always trying to build social cohesion and bring people together.”

To meet those goals, SAC has long since used their social media platforms as a means to educate the student body by creating and sharing videos on various topics of relevance. Recent topics, which are often suggested by students themselves, have included winter car safety and how to prepare meals to fight rising living costs.

“Bringing people together and creating that social network, a lot of the time, is not always easy for people,” says Graveline. “We found all these different ways to make it as easy as possible (for students) transitioning here.”

VIDEO: Episode 1 of Manners with Muhammad – Bus manners

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The titular star Manners with Muhammad is Muhammad Shaikh, a hospitality student and a “Face of Fleming” — one of many Fleming College students who have been nominated by their peers for contributing to the college’s successes.

As a regular volunteer for the “Street Team” at SAC — a collective of students who help promote events, volunteer at events, and assist SAC in delivering its services and programming — Shaikh has become well-known in the Fleming community, making him a great host to share tips for practising etiquette everywhere from on the bus to in the pub.

The first episode of Manners with Muhammad was inspired by conversations around how transit systems often vary from place to place, and oftentimes students who are not from Peterborough may have never ridden a bus before or are unaccustomed to the expected etiquette.

“There are a lot of first-time riders,” says Graveline, who, having grown up in a walkable town, knows firsthand how disorienting it can be to ride a bus for the first time. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from — when you’re a first-time rider, there’s so many things to get to know.”

With successive episodes expanding into conversations about behaviour in other public spaces, SAC communications and marketing coordinator Avery Morton adds that the videos include information that go even beyond manners to things that might seem like “common sense to us, but it’s not really common sense.”

Such conversations include things that can vary by culture, like the option to tip in a pub and which side of the stairs to walk on.

“It’s little things across different countries,” she says. “We drive on the right side, while others drive on the left. When walking past people, some people might think to walk on the left side, but in Canada, we would walk past someone on the right side. So little things like that we just like to add into our videos.”

VIDEO: Episode 3 of Manners with Muhammad – Pub manners

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But, as Graveline notes, the series is not meant to cater to one demographic of students, but rather are useful to anyone and everyone who may scroll past them.

“There’s a stigma that comes from these things, where people like to look at it as if it’s just for international students,” he says. “But this is something that’s for all students. Everybody’s learning.”

In the coming weeks, SAC will be looking for student suggestions for the next videos and segments in the series, with classroom manners coming up as the next topic, largely focused on where to be mindful of volume.

Even beyond Manners with Muhammad, SAC is brainstorming ideas for future educational videos and series topics, with plans to next focus on water safety as the ice melt and students are looking ahead to summer.

“We’re always thinking of topics,” says Morton. “There’s so much to learn.”

Follow Fleming College SAC on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for the latest in the Manners with Muhammad series.

From psoriasis to suspected skin cancers, Municipality of Trent Hills residents with a variety of dermatological concerns can look to a clinic at their local hospital.

Campbellford Memorial Hospital (CMH) in Campbellford is opening a new outpatient dermatology clinic. The clinic will be operated by Dr. Ashley O’Toole, a Royal College-trained dermatologist from Peterborough.

The launch of the clinic is an important enhancement of dermatological health care services for the community, Heather Campbell, vice-president of patient care and chief nursing executive for CMH, told kawarthaNOW.

“The introduction of our new dermatology clinic marks another milestone in our ongoing commitment to providing comprehensive health care services right here at (CMH),” Campbell said.

“This clinic further expands our array of services, offering our community access to specialized dermatological care for a variety of concerns, including suspected skin cancers, without the need to travel to larger facilities,” Campbell noted.

The new clinic’s doctor brings with her “a wealth of expertise and experience,” having received her medical degree from McMaster University in Hamilton and completing her residency in dermatology at the University of Ottawa.

An adjunct professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, O’Toole is also a co-author of more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and has been involved as a sub-investigator for more than 90 clinical trials on conditions such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa, alopecia, acne, itch, glabellar lines, and vitiligo.

The clinic, scheduled to run on the first Friday of every month, will serve patients with a wide array of dermatological concerns including acne and rosacea management, rashes such as psoriasis and eczema, and suspected skin cancers.

“Dr. O’Toole is committed to delivering comprehensive and compassionate care to all patients referred to the clinic, ensuring that each individual receives the highest standard of treatment,” CMH noted.

The hospital encourages residents who need dermatological care to reach out to their health care provider about accessing the clinic. Referrals are already being accepted.