Aviva Community Awards

Browsing through the semi-finalists of the 2010 Aviva Community Fund competition, there are an awful lot of worthy ideas -- building a proper playground for a school, for example, or turning an RV into a mobile clinic. But this is a competition, after all, and so these great ideas have to be narrowed down to a few winners.

Those winners will get a piece of the million-dollar pie to realize their projects. And there are a few Ottawa ideas in the running.

The Glebe Centre, for example, wants to brighten up the underground tunnel that connects its residences. A few murals will make the tunnel a happier place to get some daily walking exercise, plus it will provide the Centre's residents living with Alzheimer's to find some stimulation. If you like how that sounds, you can vote for the proposal here.

Or, how about a program that gets low-income kids up and running -- literally, in some cases? You can read all about Walk This Way here.

Or perhaps you'd like to throw your vote behind Catching a Smile, which proposes sending seniors out fishing as a way to get active, stimulated & social. If that gets your vote, go here.

There are other Eastern-Ontario projects available on the Aviva Community Fund web site -- and you can hear more about it in the interview below. But don't dally -- voting ends on Friday.