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Agency Spotlight: St. Philip Neri’s Table
In honour of Mother’s Day this month, we’re sharing how a mother and son’s volunteer work strengthens their bond at St. Philip Neri’s table, a partner agency of North York Harvest Food Bank.
Every Saturday Yesmil and a dedicated team of 50 volunteers distribute essential food and other support to their community. Yesmil co-founded the food bank with the then-pastor of St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in 2021, after seeing the need in their community surge during the pandemic.
It has since become a lifeline for many in the community.
“My family’s support makes all the difference,” Yesmil says. “The volunteers, including my sons, who have accompanied me from the beginning, help make real connections with our clients. Together, we’ve created a welcoming space for all.”
The team’s combined efforts provide emergency food to 230 households each week, serving a diverse community in the Jane and Wilson area, including many new moms, seniors, and others struggling to make ends meet.
“It’s not just about food,” Yesmil adds. “We
also focus on essential items like diapers, adult diapers, and baby formula—things that often take up a large portion of someone’s income.”
One client, who is also a volunteer, shared that “If it weren’t for the baby formula I receive here, I wouldn’t have been able to raise my grandchild.”
On Saturday, May 17, St. Philip Neri’s commemorated their four-year anniversary by serving their community soup and bread before distributing food.
“This mission would not be possible without the collective effort of the volunteers and the entire community,” Yesmil says, “ and working as a family for the community brings immeasurable value.”
Comments Off on How your support changed a mother’s life
Your support changed a mother’s life
Josephine was 20, pregnant, and terrified the first time she came to North York Harvest Food Bank.
She was living in a shelter after fleeing an abusive relationship, unsure how she would provide food and shelter for her baby.
Josephine was navigating motherhood by herself, but thanks to your support – she wasn’t alone.
At North York Harvest, not only did she receive nutritious food to keep her and her baby healthy, she found support with resources like housing, furniture, clothing, and prenatal care.
When she no longer had to focus all her energy on surviving, Josephine was empowered to return to school and start her own construction business.
Hear from Josephine how the care of her community helped her get back on her feet and provide food security to her family.
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Agency Spotlight: Welcome to WAES
North York Harvest Food Bank is the primary food bank of Northern Toronto, but we’re more than just one organization.
We work with a network of nearly 40 partner agencies, united by a shared mission to help our communities meet their food needs. Together we serve 30,000 community members every month, ensuring families and individuals including children, seniors, and persons with disabilities have access to dignified food support.
One partner agency, The Weston Area Emergency Support (WAES), started the same way. Several local churches came together to create a food bank in 1986 to meet a rising need in the Weston area.
Since then, the need in Weston has only increased, and today WAES serves 3,500 client visits every month.
They operate with a passionate team of 50 regular volunteers, 50 casual volunteers, and one food space manager.
About WAES
Two program days serving food to their community each week
Nearly 1 in 3 client visits are children
Seniors represent 16% of all visits
3 in 4 clients identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Person of Colour)
Diana Stapleton has been a volunteer at WAES for over 30 years. Before retiring, she worked in research and advocacy at Food Banks Canada. She says WAES strives to be a low-barrier food bank with an emphasis on providing fresh food to clients, including eggs, produce, and halal protein.
In addition to support received from North York Harvest and Second Harvest, WAES relies on the generosity of their community to keep shelves and fridges stocked.
“York South-Weston has always been known as one of the lowest-income ridings in Ontario,” Diana says. “We’ve got a really interesting and vibrant community, but also a lot of the issues that go along with people struggling with low income.”
“One question I get asked a lot is: ‘Well how do you know they really need it?’ People have to spend so much time proving they’re poor enough to receive so many other supports that we are committed to being a low-barrier food bank,” Diana says.
WAES has seen a 20% increase in client visits over last year, and it’s coming to a breaking point – to the extent they may need to cut off new client visits.
“It’s the last thing we want to do, but with the space we have we can’t bring in enough food to give out,” she says.
“Everyone is saying the same thing: This is the worst situation for food insecurity we’ve ever had. Everybody knows it, and still nobody is doing anything – if we as a nation are going to help people, we have to do it properly.”
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Removing barriers at the ballot box
As the need for food banks is reaching record highs, voter turnout in our community is reaching record lows.
There are many barriers stopping people from making it to the ballot box.
After paying rent and utilities, on average our community members only have about $7 per day to spend on food, transportation, medication and all other expenses. It’s not easy getting to the polls when getting there eats into your food budget.
The No. 1 reason people walk through our doors is the high cost of rent, and far too many don’t even have a permanent place to call home. It’s not easy exercising your right to vote when you don’t have a permanent address.
That’s why North York Harvest Food Bank held a Community BBQ to Get Out the Vote on Sunday, April 13.
We had free food, games, raffles, face-painting, advocacy, and free transportation taking attendees to the polls to cast their vote.
Over 600 people attended the BBQ throughout the day, with 75 folks heading to the polls. Many community members who voted said if it weren’t for this initiative, they wouldn’t have been able to vote.
Watch a short highlight reel from our BBQ below!
That week, our Community Engagement team also visited each of our four food spaces to shuttle over 100 clients to vote and ensure no one was turned away from exercising their right to vote. For some, it was their very first time voting.
“This whole initiative, whether it was the BBQ or the shuttles from our food banks to the polling station was really just about making sure the people most impacted by the affordability crisis are having their voices heard in this election,” says North York Harvest’s Senior Advocacy Specialist Chiara Padovani.
By removing barriers in the voting process, nearly 200 community members cast their ballot this federal election!
In this Impact Report, you’ll learn not only who you are helping today, but how we are working alongside our community to fight for long-term solutions to food insecurity.
Emergency Food Support
Between September 2024 – February 2025 we distributed 1.4 million lbs. of food across our network, ensuring each of the 30,000 clients we support every month received nutritious food.
October was our busiest month, reaching 31,224 client visits.
Our caring neighbours rallied together to hold 124 food drives to supply essential non-perishable foods like pasta, cooking oil, and canned meat and vegetables!
We also worked with 33 partner organizations including bakeries and manufacturers to procure additional food such as fresh produce.
Advocacy Actions!
With 1 in 10 Torontonians turning to a food bank, we know more food won’t solve food insecurity. That’s why our Community Engagement team was busy advocating for policy changes and mobilizing our network for real change.
Some highlights include:
(September) We held our Final Community Advocacy Open House, where clients were invited to discuss the issues that are making it the most challenging for them to meet their food needs, and how we can work together to make our voices heard and demand solutions.
(October) Our Community Connector Daffodil spoke at Queen’s Park ahead of the Raise the Rates Rally, calling for an end to legislated poverty by doubling social assistance rates.
(November) Community Engagement delivered over 300 postcards from FeedOntario’s postcard campaign from clients who wrote to their MPPs about the affordability crisis and how it is impacting their ability to meet their basic needs.
(December) North York Harvest’s Senior Specialist of Advocacy, Chiara Padovani, joins a Feed Ontario panel to bust myths about food banks and the people who use them.
(December) North York Harvest clients joined together for a Community Art Build where they made signs, buttons and posters to use at upcoming rallies.
(January) North York Harvest deputes at the Toronto City Budget Committee, calling for increased funding for drop-in meal programs that serve life-saving meals all across our city.
(February) Ryan joins Mayor Olivia Chow to call for an expanded student nutrition program to fight child hunger.
(February) Our Community Engagement team rented a bus to help mobilize 60+ clients to attend the City Budget Rally. Afterwards, we headed inside City Hall to hand-deliver our petitions calling for City Council to support a TTC Fare Freeze, more support for renters, an expansion of the student nutrition program, and increased funding for drop-in meal programs. Together we won all those things!
(February) Ahead of the provincial election, we set up Election info tables at our food spaces to share information with our community members on how, where and when to vote, and to provide non-partisan information on where the four main parties stood on some of the issues that impact our community members most.
None of this would have been possible without your support; thank you for being there for our community. View the Impact Statement
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Bathurst-Finch in Photos
Welcome to the Bathurst-Finch Community Food Space! It’s North York Harvest’s busiest food space, located in the Westminster-Branson community at the Herb Carnegie Centennial Centre. Follow along to learn more about Bathurst-Finch and the community we serve.
The North York Harvest delivery truck arrives in the morning with food for the week’s programs. In addition to essential non-perishable food received from the community, North York Harvest works with several partner organizations to procure high-quality fresh foods including meat, dairy and produce.
Volunteers get to work unpacking the day’s deliveries onto the shelves and into the fridges ahead of service in the afternoon.
Bathurst-Finch has three program days a week, serving over 3800 client visits per month.
Bathurst-Finch has a dedicated team of nearly 40 volunteers who help out on a regular basis, including Jesse! Jesse has been with us since September, helping out with everything from client registration to receiving shipments, and helping our community engagement team with advocacy initiatives.
“As a person who has required food banks for most of my life, it feels good to be able to provide back to a service that has provided to me,” Jesse says.
His favourite moment of volunteering so far was attending the Budget Rally in February 2025 at CIty Hall. The Community Engagement team mobilized 60+ food bank clients down to City Hall to attend the rally and hand-deliver petitions to our elected officials.
Julie has been working at North York Harvest since 2015, where she began as a student in community social work.
“I like engaging with clients, you get to meet a lot of community members on different levels – not just inside the food space but in the community itself.
“For a lot of our members, this is their only option, it’s no longer a temporary solution. North York Harvest has been doing a lot of outreach at our food spaces to get more community members involved in our advocacy efforts to fight together for change.”
North York Harvest uses a choice model as part of our commitment to dignified food assistance. Our volunteers show clients what is available on the shelves, and clients are able to choose what they would like to cook for themselves and their families. This allows clients to adhere to their own unique dietary or cultural restrictions, and it reduces food waste by not serving community members food they cannot use.
Bathurst-Finch serves a diverse community from all walks of life, including many clients of Filipino and Ukrainian descent.
Our Bathurst-Finch Community
Nearly 20% of client visits are seniors
1 in 4 are children and youth
57% of clients are from 1 or 2-person households
In the past 6 months, 25% of clients served were first-time clients
“Like most Ukrainians, we lived very well in our country, not needing anything. Everything was abundant. No one expected a full-scale invasion… It’s very scary to be in another country without even being able to provide ourselves with food. So we are extremely grateful to the food bank for providing us with such support. “ – Diana, client
There’s a reason North York Harvest calls its food banks ‘community food spaces.’ Beyond emergency food support, these are welcoming spaces where clients can connect with one another and build relationships with our volunteers and staff.
Comments Off on Our community mobilized for change – and won!
In December, the City of Toronto declared food insecurity an emergency.
In the following two months, North York Harvest Food Bank collected hundreds of petition signatures, sent dozens of letters and gave deputations to urge every city councillor to pass a city budget that puts people first.
For years North York Harvest has been making policy recommendations to government, but this year we mobilized our community like never before to take these issues to the doorstep of our decisionmakers and put them on notice.
On the day of the official City budget deliberation, we brought a delegation of 60+ people from our community food banks and joined with other community members and organizations at the City Budget Rally outside City Hall.
(In December our Community Action Group got together for an Art Build event, where North York Harvest clients made signs and posters. The event was a platform for our community to connect with one another on issues that are impacting them every day and use their voice for real change.)
After the rally, we went into City Hall to deliver petitions to our elected officials, calling for them to support the following in the budget:
A TTC fare freeze
The TTC fare freeze means people won’t have to choose between transportation and their next meal.With food bank users having as little as $7.78 left per day after rent and utilities, even a small fare increase can make a big difference.
More funding for renter supports Additional funding for RentSafeTO, the Toronto Rent Bank and the Tenant Support Program will help prevent evictions and protect affordable housing in Toronto.
An expansion of the Student Nutrition Program With 1 in 4 food bank users being a child, access to nutritional food at school is life-changing.
More funding for drop-in meal programs Drop-ins are providing life-saving meals to Toronto’s most vulnerable populations, and adding $530,000 to the Creating Health Plus budget would ensure these vital programs would at least be able to operate with the same level of funding as last year.
And together … we won!
Thanks to the advocacy of our community, the meaningful action of Mayor Olivia Chow and many city councillors, and the support of our donors who make this work possible, more children will have meals, more renters will have support, drop-in meal programs will continue to be able to serve vulnerable communities, and budgets won’t get squeezed even further by transit costs.
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Meet Society for the Living!
Since she was a little girl, Joyce has been working alongside her mother and three siblings at Society for the Living, a food bank and partner agency of North York Harvest Food Bank.
“I don’t know how many people get to work alongside their family and give back to their community. It’s something that’s really special because at the same time we’re doing this work, we get to connect as a family and connect with our community,” Joyce says.
Joyce works with her mother, known in the community as sister Vee, and siblings Aisha, Sedem, and Immanuel.
Since 1998 Society for the Living has been serving the North York community, with an emphasis on providing culturally meaningful food and a welcoming space for clients to connect with one another.
For 25 years Society called 274 Eddystone Ave. home. But during the pandemic, their rent was raised by 200% and they had to find a new space — at a time when the need in the community was increasing rapidly.
Today, Society operates out of shipping containers at two different sites: Jane and Shepherd, and Oakdale, serving 900 client visits each month.
“It was really sad for us to lose that space and we hope to one day be able to have a space to call our own with our community to connect and share food,” Joyce says.
For now they are continuing to build community however they can, including through a farm project where they grow and harvest fresh food to serve at their programs. Clients have a say in the kinds of produce that is grown and some clients also volunteer to help on the farm.
“It’s very grounding being outside in fresh air with each other and planting, growing, and harvesting food together. It’s really beautiful to see that,” Joyce says.
The next generation in the family are already helping out at the food bank, whether by cleaning up, setting up or packing boxes.
“Like me, they’re learning at a very young age that there’s a need in the community and each of us has the opportunity to give back,” Joyce says.
challenging for them to meet their food needs, and how we can work together to make our voices heard and demand solutions. 
food,” Joyce says.