Love KW

You ever heard the one about the farmer who tweeted on his Blackberry while riding in an Old Order Mennonite horse & buggy?

If you haven't, then you have unfortunately been missing out on the incredible place that Waterloo Region is.

I love where I live. Not just a little, but almost as much as I love my family. I have pride in my country, but Waterloo Region... I live and breathe it.

Waterloo Region is RICH. Not dollars and cents rich, although there's some of that floating around too, but rich in history, rich in culture, rich in innovation.

There's this little thing that can be found worldwide called the Blackberry, made by RIM. Guess where RIM is and where the Blackberry was created? Yup, you got it... Waterloo.

Waterloo has a small town/big town identity crisis going on that I wouldn't change for the world. I can be at a major shopping center sipping a Starbucks latte and 15 mins later at a Mennonite farm buying fresh eggs and bread.

We have 2 universities, a world renowned concert hall, 2 museums and Oktoberfest.

We have churches that open their doors on cold winter nights so the homeless have a place to go.

We have KidsAbility, an incredible organization that serves all our children with special needs and we have the groundbreaking Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

There's a prominent Jazz Fest every summer, and the Multi-Cultural Festival, bringing together our cultural diversity.

We have farmers who tweet while driving their tractors and this guy who shows up on a google search for almost anything.

Waterloo is a place where a Social Media Breakfast of 75 people can make #smbwr trend on Twitter across Canada.

Waterloo Region is the place where you can find a group of 10-12 people feeding, clothing and loving our areas less fortunate folks every Tuesday night.

Waterloo is home to a Farmers' Market that rivals any market in north America, and all the food is grown right in our own backyard.

Waterloo has a crazy baker who runs around town passing out FoodLove, just because.

We have a bible college, a community college, a pharmacy school and we're only an hour away from the largest city in Canada.

Waterloo is a small enough town that I run into someone I know at every event I go to, but large enough that I meet even more new people every time I step outside.

We've got 2 girls who wear tiaras because they're fabulous and we've got a group of area churches who put on huge events just to show the people of K-W how much they love them.

We have a restaurant that has been awarded the prestigious CAA/AAA Four Diamond award and another that is on the "Where to Eat in Canada" list and yet we also have Harmony Lunch, a place that cannot be described, only experienced.

I am beyond proud of my community and incredibly lucky I have the opportunity to live in a place like this.

Thank you, citizens of Waterloo Region, for making this one of the best places on earth to live. Thank you for caring about your neighbors, for accepting everyone as they are, for cleaning up parks, for supporting our local farmers, for bringing huge festivals and events to our area and for volunteering an immeasurable amount of hours to make our home a better place.

I ♥ Waterloo Region.