Drive Change: Kia Motors sponsors the build of a community garden at Gilder Drive in Scarborough.

Picture it! Two Kia cars arrive in a community, with seedlings and soil. The drivers get out of the cars, the neighbourhood comes to life and together everyone works to build a beautiful garden. Then the drivers get back into their vehicles and drive away. What a great idea for an advertising campaign about how Kia Motors gives back to communities... but things like that only happen on television, right? 

Well, on Saturday, July 10, that's exactly what happened at Gilder Drive in Scarborough.

Kia Canada really did need to make an advertisement. They really did drive into a Toronto Community Housing community with seedlings and soil. Then with help from Foodshare, a few dozen production hands, Toronto Community Housing tenants and staff, they turned an abandoned space into a beautiful community garden.

The work began early Saturday morning with production crew set-up - lights, cameras and lots of action. An abandoned space that had been filled with old tires, recycling and garbage bins was carefully transformed to a garden oasis with raisedplanting beds, a wheelchair accessible ramp and sitting area for weary gardeners to rest and survey their work. 

For a community that has been trying for years to get space to grow its own vegetables, it was incredibly moving to finally see the garden materialize.

It was a long day, made longer with the demands of filming, but it was well worth the time and work. And a perfectly suited, well timed project in a year where Toronto Community Housing has made community gardens a strategic priority in the Community Management Plan.

The Gilder garden part of the campaign airs July 23. There is also a social media component to Kia’s Drive Change campaign on YouTube and Facebook.

For more pictures from the big day, visit the photo gallery. You can also read the news release at Kia's website.