Local vintage and secondhand shop Hawk & Sparrow offers unique, sustainable and affordable clothing for everyone
Hawk & Sparrow is a vintage, secondhand boutique, located downtown at 126 James St. N. Other than vintage items, they also sell secondhand designer and a mix of everything to accommodate everyone’s styles.
“I don't just do vintage, I also do secondhand designer and then . . . a mix of things. So you can expect a 1950s sweater with a ritzy top and then a Louis Vuitton bag. There's a wide range of brands,” said Sarah Moyal, the founder of Hawk & Sparrow.
Before launching Hawk & Sparrow in 2011, Moyal had a strong fashion background. She worked for Dsquared2 in Milan at their headquarters and did styling in Toronto.
She always wanted to open a clothing store. Originally, she had wanted to open a new clothing store, but she realized that buying inventory would be too expensive for her, so she switched over to second-hand. It worked for her, and it made her more interested in secondhand clothing.
“It's just so much more interesting to have one of everything. And every one of them is so unique,” said Moyal.
Moyal has experimented with making Hawk & Sparrow accessible through online platforms such as Etsy, but she now focuses most of her energy on the store itself, as she has found that it has been getting busier.
Moyal aims to make her store accessible and safe for everyone.
“I would say it's accessible to everyone and any direction of style that someone wants to go. If they want to play it a bit safe, we have that. If you want to go wild, we also have that,” said Moyal.
I would say it's accessible to everyone and any direction of style that someone wants to go and if they want to play it a bit safe, we have that. If you want to go wild, we also have that.
Sarah Moyal, Founder, Hawk & Sparrow
Most of the items are $5 to $25, and there are $5 mystery bags all year round. Moyal is also open to negotiations. She hopes that her customers will continue to find their favourite pieces at Hawk & Sparrow.
“I hope that people will kind of find their unique style here, that they'll discover something about themselves, that they'll not feel a pressure to dress a certain way or follow a certain trend, that they'll just feel free to dress how they want, how they feel,” explained Moyal.
I hope that people will kind of find their unique style here, that they'll discover something about themselves, that they'll not feel a pressure to dress a certain way or follow a certain trend, that they'll just feel free to dress how they want, how they feel.
Sarah Moyal, Founder, Hawk & Sparrow
Over the years, she has experimented with different directions –– such as only vintage (an item from another era, usually from the 1930s-70s), vintage artisan (very old and rare pieces from the 1800s-early 1900s that are typically made by hand) and only designer –– for the shop. The current iteration of her shop has had the best reception from the Hamilton community, and she intends to keep it this way for the time being.
Last Friday’s climate strike brought the climate crisis to the forefront of public conversation. There is an ever-growing awareness of the dire reality of the climate emergency: if immediate, far-reaching action is not taken, there will be major harm to ecosystems and loss of life.
A 2018 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that, in order to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C, carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by about 45 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Research tells us that the climate emergency is an existential threat requiring immediate, far-reaching action. It is clear that our reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable.
In order to properly address the climate emergency, we need rapid and unprecedented changes in every facet of society. We need to move away from our extraction-based economy that prioritizes growth and resource extraction, towards a justice-centred approach.
Currently, the university employs measures to understand and address climate change, including the McMaster Centre for Climate Change and the SUSTAIN program. McMaster also tracks and reports on its sustainability measures every year.
However, McMaster is more than just a research institution: the University has considerable financial, social and political power that it needs to use to push for far-reaching change.
Piecemeal solutions like banning plastic bags and reducing buildings’ energy consumption are good steps in the right direction, but they are not nearly enough.
Despite claiming to support pro-environment movements, McMaster provides financial support to the fossil fuel industry.
As of last year, $35.96 million, or 4.3 per cent, of McMaster’s endowment fund was invested in fossil fuel companies. By investing in the fossil fuel industry, the university provides not only financial support, but also social license to the very industries that are harming the planet. By continuing to fund the fossil fuel industry, McMaster helps to uphold a system that is completely unsustainable.
According to the Carbon Majors Database, 71 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 can be traced back to just 100 fossil fuel companies. Furthermore, pipelines and other dangerous projects have violated Indigenous land rights in order to extract fossil fuels.
Moving away from this economic system is a much larger discussion, but one tangible step that McMaster can take is to pull investments from the university’s divestment fund out of fossil fuel companies.
Divestment is not an end goal, but is a tactic that aims to “name and shame” the fossil fuel industry. It is morally reprehensible to profit off of the destruction of the planet, and pulling investments out of fossil fuel companies sends a clear message of condemnation.
In 2015, students, staff and faculty members issued petitions urging the university to divest from fossil fuel companies. Former president Patrick Deane struck an advisory committee, which came back with 12 recommendations for McMaster to pursue instead of full divestment.
More recently, MacGreenInvest, a McMaster faculty organization, issued a petition calling on McMaster to divest fossil fuel investments from McMaster’s endowment fund, and reinvest the funds in green renewable energy companies. As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition had over 1,000 signatures on Change.org.
McMaster prides itself on being a leader in sustainable development. It is unconscionable that they pay for this work by investing into companies that profit off of harming the environment.
By Wei Yan Wu, Contributor
On Sept. 27, thousands of Canadians took to streets and parks to participate in the Global Climate Strike to raise awareness on the climate emergency.
On a request by students calling for cancellation of academic activities in order to make time for strike attendance. In response, McMaster Students for Climate Change Advocacy created a petition on Change.org. To date, more than 2,000 people have signed the petition, without a public response from the university. Classes and evaluations continued to be scheduled at McMaster during the strike.
Although the university showed no support for the petition, various climate change combating initiatives and programs exist at McMaster. The university’s energy management program, for one, strives to manage utilities and facilities in a way that improves energy efficiency.
“McMaster is very research-intensive. We’ve been working with a third party to reduce air volumes to the labs which reduces our carbon footprint,” said Joe Emberson, director of energy management and utilities at McMaster.
The university’s energy management staff has also worked on reducing water use on campus. They audit buildings to check where the water is being used, investigating if there might be alternative solutions to using water.
McMaster also offers The Sustainable Future Program (SUSTAIN) and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability to its undergraduate students.
The main pillars of the SUSTAIN program, according to Kate Whalen, current senior manager of McMaster’s academic sustainability programs, revolve around providing opportunities for students to learn about sustainability. However, they also have opportunities specifically for interdisciplinary, student-led, community-based and experiential learning.
Within their five courses, the program aims to scaffold specific skills that give students learning opportunities to prepare for tackling more complex issues in upper-year courses. On the other hand, the program’s lower-year courses have observation-based experiential excursions, projects in the community and lectures on sustainability theory.
“I expect a lot of our first-year students will be attending the climate march [on] Friday. They’ll go and participate, so they’re very much in the community in terms of project implementation and experiential learning where they’re working directly with the community,” said Whalen.
The upper-year courses focus more on community engagement and tackling city-based issues through sustainability projects. Whalen’s students, for example, are each completing a full ethics application for environmental practices. They conduct research and interviews, working with members of the community and city staff to understand environmental issues most prominent in the community and to seek solutions to these challenges.
The SUSTAIN program has garnered a great amount of interest from the student body.
“When we started the Sustainable Future Program, we had one course and I think we had just under a hundred students enrolled in it. Now we have more than five courses and we have just under a thousand students enrolled this year. We’ve seen rapid growth in the demand for our program,” said Whalen.
She attributes the success of the program to its timeliness, interdisciplinary characteristics, community-based experiences and the overall way sustainability education is being delivered at Mac. For her, it shows that Mac students are aware of the sustainability issues they face and are motivated to understand and engage with them.
Outside of academics, other McMaster students have also taken the initiative to promote sustainability across campus. Zero Waste McMaster is a new club on campus this fall.
“I decided to start the club because I thought there was a gap in the clubs at McMaster. There wasn’t really any club organization working towards conscious, sustainable, low-waste living for students,” said Josephine Agueci, president of Zero Waste McMaster and student in the SUSTAIN program.
The club is in the process of planning its activities for the year, with goals to hold monthly workshops and discussions on sustainable living. The club also aims to encourage students to attend environment awareness events like the Sustainability Walk in Hamilton happening at the beginning of October.
“Right now we’re focusing on individual impact, but from there we definitely want to work towards helping McMaster be more sustainable as a school, not just on an individual level. So whether that be working on a composting system or working with different food options or waste disposal on campus,” said Agueci.
Zero Waste McMaster also aims to collect feedback from the student body. They want to know what students want to change and what sustainability issues they see on campus.
Though the university did not support students who wished to attend the climate strike on Sept. 27, academic programs continue to find ways to contribute to efforts against climate change. While many of them were not able to skip their classes or evaluations on Sept. 27, McMaster students are nevertheless finding ways to engage in sustainability initiatives on campus.
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By: Donna Nadeem
In the fall, An’am Sherwani, Asha Smith and Garry Vinayak, three students taking the SUSTAIN 3S03 course, conducted a new study on food insecurity on campus.
The results reveal that 39 per cent of the 204 student respondents have experienced moderate food insecurity and 12 per cent have experienced severe insecurity.
Food insecurity refers to the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food.
Meal Exchange is a nonprofit organization that tackles issues such as student food insecurity in Canadian post-secondary institutions.
In 2016, Meal Exchange worked with university campuses including Brock University, the University of Calgary, Dalhousie University, Lakehead University and Ryerson University to survey students using the “Hungry for Knowledge” survey guide and framework.
The objectives of the study were to determine a ‘prevalence estimate’ of students experiencing food insecurity, identify key factors that contribute to student food insecurity and raise awareness about various services that address and help reduce the issue of student food insecurity.
As part of the course, Sherwani, Smith and Vinayak created an online survey for the McMaster student population to collect information about students who are at most risk of food insecurity.
The survey also asked respondents about the various barriers and factors that influence and contribute to the emergence of student food insecurity.
The goal of the project was to use the survey data collection to gain knowledge and a deeper understanding about the social issue of student food insecurity.
The team advertised the survey through social media, posters around campus and class talks. They obtained 204 partial responses and 185 complete responses.
Their findings indicate that 39 percent, or 71, of respondents have experienced ‘moderate’ food insecurity while 12 per cent, or 22 respondents, experienced ‘severe’ food insecurity.
Respondents indicated that their food insecurity was largely the result of factors including financial barriers, having limited time to cook and the lack of healthy and diverse food options on campus.
They also reported that food insecurity impacted their physical health, mental health, social life and grades.
The most common experiences amongst those dealing with food insecurity included relying on low-cost foods, not eating healthy balanced meals, and prioritizing other financial needs before securing adequate food.
The study also suggests that food insecurity also results in skipping meals and sometimes not eating the entire day.
Of those who identified as food insecure, only 24 per cent utilized programs and services at their disposal, such as the McMaster Students Union Food Collective Centre.
Nonetheless, as there is a stigma associated with these services, it is unclear the extent to which respondents underreported their use of them.
After analyzing the results of the survey, the team shared their findings were shared with MSU student clubs and services.
These groups can use the results of the study, particularly the one about students’ use of food services, as a springboard to explore new ways of outreach to McMaster students experiencing food insecurity.
The increased usage of these services and clubs may aid in the reduction of food insecurity at McMaster.
The SUSTAIN 3S03 team has sent their study to a graduate student, who will continue to pursue and examine the research. Further exploration and follow-ups are currently in progress and the study will be continued into 2019.
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