Tag Archive: community food

  1. FoodReach: 2025 Year in Review!

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    A graphic with the FoodReach logo with text that says a social enterprise of North York Harvest Food Bank. Below are four circles with white arrows indicating a cycle. In each circle are stats about the number of orders made, sites delivered to, and revenue kept within the local community.

    Our social enterprise FoodReach is a community impact powerhouse! In 2025 FoodReach continued to advance North York Harvest’s mission, increase food access for non-profits, and keep money and jobs flowing within our local economy.

    What is FoodReach?


    2025 Highlights

    Keeping costs down
    2025 was another record-breaking year of food insecurity for communities across Ontario. Food prices in Canada also increased 6.2%, squeezing food budgets for community members and non-profits serving essential meals every day.

    This year, FoodReach grew its network of customers by 49%. By utilizing this network’s bulk purchasing power, FoodReach was able to reduce costs on key food items to help more food banks, drop-in meal programs, libraries, and schools nourish their communities.

    A graphic with the FoodReach logo with the text "a social enterprise of North York Harvest Food Bank" below are various food items showing how FoodReach reduced or maintained prices on key food items.

    Feeding more kids

    A child's drawing of herself with the title 'We Are Leaders' where a young girl describes that she is a leader because she is kind, and she loves the school snack program.

    In February 2025, North York Harvest Executive Director Ryan Noble joined Mayor Olivia Chow at a press conference calling for the expansion of the Student Nutrition Program. Together they helped secure funding for the program in the 2025 City budget, so more children could focus on learning, not hunger.

    In partnership with the Toronto Foundation for Student Success, FoodReach grew from supporting 38 school food programs, up to 82! That’s over 31,000 students receiving nutritious food at school every day — powered by FoodReach.

    Building shared prosperity
    This year FoodReach furthered its commitment to local procurement, with over 50% of the food in its purchasing portal sourced from regional producers! That means FoodReach can keep money circulating within our economy by supporting local businesses, while also protecting the non-profit supply chain against harmful disruptions, like tariffs.

    Revenue earned also supports North York Harvest’s operations and workforce training program, Leadership in Logistics. This is North York Harvest’s Community Wealth Building Model in action: Local dollars are reinvested while food access is improved for thousands of people across food banks, shelters, libraries, and schools — affordably and equitably.

    In 2026 FoodReach will grow again when we move into our new Community Food Hub. More food for more non-profits, more Leadership in Logistics graduates, and more sustainable revenue to support North York Harvest as we work toward our vision of a community where all members can meet their food needs.

  2. Welcome to Bathurst-Finch Community Food Space

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    Bathurst-Finch in Photos

    A volunteer wearing a North York Harvest Food Bank apron holds a crate of fresh food in a food bank setting.

    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.

    A person lifts a box of food off of a pile and loads it onto a cart outside a food bank. In the background, someone unloads several more skids from a delivery truck.

    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.

    A bag of potatoes are poured into a wooden bin with shelves of food visible in the background.

    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.

    A person wearing a grey sweater smiles as they stand in a food bank.

    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.

    A person in a red North York Harvest Food Bank sweater stands smiling in front of a banner that reads Welcome to Bathurst-Finch Community Food Space

    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.”

    A person stands behind the counter smiling at a food bank as they serve a client.

    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.

    An older adult is visible from behind as they wait to be served at the food bank. In the background, food bank staff pick food off of the shelves.

    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

    Rows of canned tuna and canned meat sit on a shelf at a food bank.

    “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

    Four food bank staff hold various food items standing in front of the shelves at a food bank.

    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. 

    It’s where they can access wraparound supports for other vital resources like clothing and health services that improve their quality of life.  It’s also where community members, whose concerns are often ignored by those in power, can find platforms to use their voice for change.

    Thank you for joining us at Bathurst-Finch, and thank you to our donors, staff, and volunteers who help make this critical work possible every day.

    Together we are working toward our vision of a community where all members are able to meet their food needs.

  3. Growing Stronger Through Our Network

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    Over the past 18 months, our partner agencies have been able to rely on our ongoing support in many different service areas. Operated by volunteers, Community Share Food Bank has been able to continue helping more than 150 families meet their food needs every week. Established in 2005, Community Share Food Bank provides fresh and non-perishable food to families on a weekly basis. As a member of our agency network, Community Share strives to provide healthier, more food secure community by creating a space where people can come together and feel a sense of belonging. Community Share Food Bank, that would not have been able to serve the community without resources available through North York Harvest.

    “Being able to lean on North York Harvest’s expertise as a larger, parent agency that has emergency plans in place and the resources available, we can grow, build and move forward in a much stronger way.” Diane Enhorning, past chair Community Share

    As a partner with North York Harvest, during the pandemic Community Food Share relied even more to get up and running quickly. Beginning with getting access to the Toronto Public Library’s Don Mills location to developing the infrastructure needed to operate safely, Diane credits the partnership with North York Harvest as being a major contributing factor to the ongoing success of Community Share’s programs.

    Now with a program manager in place, along with policies and procedures and the connections Community Share has established as a North York Harvest partner agency, Enhorning is looking forward to continuing to work, learn and grow. With brighter days on the horizon, it is an exciting time for Community Share to be able to bring additional resources and programs to the neighbourhood.