We love our volunteers! Without their dedication and heart, we wouldn’t be able to provide food for over 13,000 people in Toronto every month! THANK YOU!
To celebrate their commitment, we have put together a slideshow of many of our fantastic volunteers in action!
Join the Team! Volunteer with Us!
One of the best ways of getting involved with your community is by holding your very own food & funds drive! This is an awesome way of collecting money and non-perishable items that will go towards providing many meals for your neighbours in need!
Did you know that there are MANY ways to raise food and funds that are exciting and fun?
Check out some of these great ideas!
Invite the entire school including parents and the surrounding community! You can charge 2 cans for admission and have us come and support you! Don’t forget to live tweet everything!
Put out a food collection bin and run a carnival and BBQ. Game tickets can go towards NYH!
Cram a bus with as much food as (safely) possibly and join us at the food bank! We would love to give you a tour and show you how we sort the food!
In order for an employee to come wearing something other than usual, they must bring two cans of food or a monetary donation.
Give out prizes like:
Funds raised from your event will help support over 13,000 people a month with their food needs!
Attendees can bring food or a donation to the food bank as their entrance fee. You can even have a dance off to find out who has the best moves!
Clean out your unwanted items (one person’s trash can be another’s treasure!) while raising money for your neighbours that are hungry!
Still not sure what kind of fun ideas there are when helping your community? Check out this great list of 87 IDEAS!
Ready to have a great time and provide meals to your neighbours that are hungry? Contact Leslie at leslie@northyorkharvest.com or 416-635-7771 ex 21 TODAY!
One of my favourite pastimes is looking up recipes on Pinterest and being able to cook new and exciting meals for my friends.
When you make your grocery list, you might be thinking of recipes for your family that include fresh ingredients such as vegetables, milk and meat.
Unfortunately, for some people in our community, trying many of these new recipes is a luxury they don’t have because they can’t access fresh ingredients. Many of our neighbours struggle to afford any food let alone food that’s healthy and nutritious. This can lead to choices between filling your belly with healthy items or filling your belly with empty calories to avoid hunger.
You’ve seen it at the grocery store – the chips, ramen noodles and other processed foods are so much cheaper than what’s in the produce section. I find sales all the time on microwave dinners and sugary cereals, but rarely deals on ingredients for my next salad. Considering how low our dollar currently is, it’s hard for many to afford any fresh produce at all.
Lack of proper nutrition is linked to low incomes and food is the most flexible item in a family budget. During tough financial times, people will purchase the cheaper items in order to save money. In fact, 54% of North York Harvest’s clients have reported skipping meals in order to pay for bills such as rent, utilities, transportation and food for their children. 33% of our clients go without food at least one day a week.
A poor diet can also prove disastrous to one’s health as well. Some effects of a poor diet include:
Because of the need for nutritious items in a food hamper, we often resort to food purchasing because food donations alone will not provide fresh items such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy and protein. This is why we have started the Build a Hamper campaign to aide in purchasing these items to support low-income families that need them.
You can help ensure that families receive healthy food items and don’t have to struggle with side effects of poor nutrition. Please help us take our food hampers to the next level. Your donations will purchase nutritious items and make sure that no child, parent or grandparent goes without enough healthy food.
Next time when you’re out buying groceries for your next nutritious meal think about picking up some items for your neighbours in need. Here is a list of suggested food items.
Every groundhog day, Canada patiently waits to see what Wiarton Willie has to say about how much longer we have to wait out the winter.
Well… as of February 2, the little critter said we had six more weeks to go and if you’re like me, you can’t wait! It’s almost time to break out the spring jackets and put away the toques and mittens for another year! It’s time to walk around in the sunshine surrounded by trees and flowers blossoming and the smell of fresh cut grass.
You make this important event possible each year! With the food and funds raised during this drive, your neighbours will have enough food to help them get by through off peak times such as the summer. When kids are on summer vacation, they lack access to the breakfast and lunch programs run by their schools. But with your help, they will have enough food to give them the energy needed to be healthy and active kids all summer long!
So how can you get involved in this great event?
Not sure what food to donate? No problem! We have a handy list of all of the top needed items at the food bank! If you’re looking through your pantry for items to donate, be sure not to donate anything expired – please check out this blog post on best before dates for more info.
Because of your generosity, we are able to provide food for over 13,000 parents, children and grandparents every month!
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Thank you so much for making the end of 2015 amazing! Because of you we were able to provide 2.5 MILLION meals to people that are hungry in Toronto
Would you like the PDF? CLICK HERE!
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As the Winter Food Drive wraps up, we are absolutely astounded by how the community came together to support your neighbours in need! Your holiday spirit and eagerness to make a difference in the lives of people that are hungry was nothing short of incredible!
All of your efforts raised $270,000 & 250,000 lbs. of food!
From the food drives…
To generous financial donations…
To even some really creative fundraising ideas…like Ferrero holding a product sale in the lobby of their building. It sold out quickly and had a line up right out the door!
It’s amazing what a group of generous and community minded people can achieve when they get together!
You even booked the sort room for every session available to help sort the groceries coming in from the drive!
Our friends from Brand Active sorted a whopping 10,068 lbs. of food for families in need!
Our Winter Public Sort was booked to capacity with volunteers more than a month before the event!
Including City Councillors Shelley Carroll & Frank Di Giorgio
Even Mayor John Tory stepped in to help!
Your time and effort was absolutely awesome!
Kids will enough enough to eat…
Shelters for teens will be able to provide well rounded meals…
Community members can get together to bond over the joy of food…
…And SO much more!
It’s not too late to make a gift to provide meals for people that are hungry! You can still organize a food and funds drive or make a financial donation here!
Don’t miss out on more great news from North York Harvest! Sign up for our E-News!
New Year’s resolutions are very common to make at this time of year. I have definitely thought of a couple for myself, and it has probably crossed your mind as well. Most of the popular resolutions are to get out of debt, volunteer more, get fit, quit smoking or save money.
As a new member of the North York Harvest family, I was curious about our New Year’s Resolutions for a city where no one goes hungry. I sat down with our Executive Director, Ryan Noble, to chat about what is in store for North York Harvest Food Bank in 2016. These are some of the main things we will be partnering with our donors, community and agencies in 2016
Our Lawrence Heights Community Food Bank, used to be at our old location in Lawrence Heights. We were unable to have the food bank come with us to 116 Industry Street. It needed to stay in that area to provide service to the many clients who relied on it for food support. With space in our old neighborhood difficult to find, we were able to find a home nearby that promised to be a good solution. Yet two major issues that our food bank clients face is the cost of transportation and disability. The majority of the 2,000 clients who access this food bank living in Lawrence Heights found it difficult to get there. We quickly recognized that to ensure clients would be able to access the food bank it would need to move back to the Lawrence Heights community. With the support of our staff, volunteer leaders and the Lawrence Heights community, we have been working on a solution that would provide us with an accessible space right back in the community. With the continued support of donors like you and our dedicated community, our goal is to move back within the next 6 months without interrupting service. We want to ensure that in the cold winter months ahead, everyone will be able to access the food they need.
Recently the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) was passed during a Toronto city council meeting. The PRS aims to eliminate poverty in Toronto by 2035 with implementations starting in 2016. The goal is to address immediate needs such as housing, transportation and food insecurity. NYH has been a big supporter of this strategy since day one and we would like to see it take shape. The only issue now is what funding will be available for this plan.
What does North York Harvest want to see addressed as soon as possible? Public space for food programming. Many people living in poverty do not have access to healthy food because of where they live. We want to be able to provide our programs in more communities, but there is a lack of public space for us to run our programs (like our issue with Lawrence Heights).
The PRS recommends increasing the number of emergency food programs such as food banks in neighbourhoods that have food insecurity and poor food access.
This would significantly help us serve over 13,000 people each month and would increase access to these programs for our clients. Click here to find out more about the Poverty Reduction Strategy.
When we moved into our new home at 116 Industry St, one of the things we were most excited about was the potential for partnerships with many of the great organizations also located here. One collaboration that we were able to implement right away was allowing students working on their forklift-driving license to use our forklifts and warehouse. This has helped them complete their training in a live warehouse thus building real work experience. As we enter 2016, we have some plans to see that partnership expand. We’re hoping to create an apprentice program for on the job training while supporting our warehouse distribution. This will ensure we can move more food through our warehouse to the clients who need it.
In an effort to make sure that our community has enough healthy food to eat, we have further developed our food purchasing program into the Build a Hamper Program. The goal of this program is to take our food hampers to the next level by adding more fresh and healthy food. Many of our food items come through donations from food drives or corporate donations and consist of non-perishable foods. We would like to increase our food purchasing budget so we can provide more items such as fresh vegetables, dairy, eggs, meat and milk to ensure a more balanced meal for those that access our food banks. If you would like to learn more about our Build A Hamper program, click here.
We are definitely looking forward to achieving these goals in 2016! What are your New Year’s Resolutions?
Keep in Touch this Year!!
2015 was a great year at North York Harvest Food Bank and it couldn’t have been done without you!
Enjoy our 2015 year in review video!
We can’t wait to see what 2016 holds!