The Toronto Observer

Observer staff recently fanned out across Scarborough to ask you one question: What’s the best thing about Scarborough? Here's what you told us.

The hunt for summer jobs is soon to begin. Once school is out, hundreds of students will be giving out resumes, applying online, and exploring every possible resource to find a job. To secure summer employment, job hopefuls should consult local Scarborough employment agencies.

Golf can be a relaxing way to spend several hours outdoors. Many golfers will tell you it’s one of the best things about the sport aside from the friendly competition. But ask a person who doesn’t play golf why they don’t pick up the sport and they’ll tell you it takes too long to play, is frustrating or costs too much money.

Kids need to be active during the summer break and the best way for them to do that is by playing sports. One of the best in Scarborough is soccer. But why soccer? “It’s the most affordable sport because children don’t need a lot of equipment to play it,” says Scarborough resident Waylin Chang, whose two sons, ages 8 and 10, participated in a soccer league last summer.

Paige Schultz had been anticipating this moment for the last four years. “It’s crazy how fast it’s come,” the 20-year-old East York swimmer said in a March 9 interview before this year’s Olympic trials in Montreal. “2008 feels like yesterday.”

In 2000, Carol Diefenbacher's son Brandon Wagner was involved in a car accident. He was the only one who survived but the crash left him paralyzed. Wagner, now 28, is set to represent Canada in wheelchair basketball on the Paralympic stage this summer in London.

City council has unanimously approved waiving $1.5 million in sports field fees and consulting with sports groups in setting fees for 2013. An official from a Scarborough sports group said the fees are undeserved, especially if paid toward low-quality fields. Toronto is the only municipality in the GTA that doesn’t charge for its sports fields for youth leagues.

Mayor Rob Ford is a volunteer football coach, but hours on the gridiron failed to teach him one essential lesson: don’t take the field away from the players by proposing fees.

With so many health-focused restaurants in Toronto’s downtown core, Scarborough residents may have trouble knowing where to find healthy restaurants closer to home. Restaurants like Fresh, which has three locations in Toronto, are vowing to serve the public more healthy meals made from natural ingredients without animal by-products.

Lack of funding is preventing the growth of breakfast and food programs in Scarborough schools. The Toronto Partners for Student Nutrition (TPSN) placed a moratorium on the division of municipal and provincial funding that provides subsidy for existing breakfast and food programs in schools.