Tag Archive: policy

  1. Community BBQ to Get Out the Vote this federal election!

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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!

    Four people wearing red North York Harvest attire smile together at an advocacy tent at a community BBQ.

  2. Read our latest Impact Statement!

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    Building stronger communities, together

    Five people in red North York Harvest Food Bank aprons have their arms around each others' shoulders, smiling in a food bank setting.

    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 mostTwo people post sticky notes ranking issues including housing and employment on to a paper. 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. 

    (November) Executive Director Ryan Noble speaks with CBC, says crisis is being ignored by those in power

    (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. A man speaks into a microphone at a press conference for funding the expansion of the student nutrition program. In the background, fellow speakers smile.

    (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

  3. Our community mobilized for change – and won!

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    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!

    Dozens of people holding protest signs stand together during a rally outside City Hall

    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.

    Together we make change happen!

  4. Connecting our community with wraparound supports

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    More than food: Connecting our community with wraparound supports

    One person wearing a mask and an apron sits and smiles next to a person wearing a backpack and sunglasses. There is text on the bottom that reads Meet Elis! North York Harvest's Service Navigation Manager

    Did you know our Community Food Spaces have more to offer beyond emergency food support?

    While we serve nearly 30,000 client visits each month, a vital support for individuals and families facing food insecurity – clients

    An image of an old man smiling and giving the thumbs up from a dentist chair. In the quote text, he expresses gratitude for North York Harvest helping him get access to dental care.

     often have other needs that require additional support to improve their quality of life.

    Our Service Navigation Manager, Elis, helps connect clients with wraparound supports by providing information and referrals to resources such as healthcare and clothing.

    “For sure clients need food assistance, but beyond that, they need housing, furniture, dental information, information about family doctors and child care,” Elis says. “These are other important services that help people to survive.”

    Before taking on this role, Elis worked at our Bathurst-Finch Community Food Space for 10 years, where she and other food space managers provided referrals where they could.

    Thanks to a grant from Community Foundations of Canada: Healthy Communities Initiative, North York Harvest was able to fund this vital work on a larger scale through the Virtual Case Management Program. Clients met with Elis in person or virtually to get the support they needed at times that worked for them.

    Between September 2023-August 2024, 740 referrals were made. The most-needed referrals supported individuals with:

    • Government services
    • Clothing Bank
    • Dentist services
    • Employment support + training
    • Primary care

    A graph indicating top referrals by category such as furniture and dental care services.

    “The support that we got was very valuable and beneficial for us,” says Elena, a North York Harvest client. “Me and my family have a difficult predicament, as I am ailed by health issues and have a young son. Food Bank staff understood the struggles we were facing, supporting and helping us in any way they could … and has helped us with obtaining furniture and clothing.”

    For newcomers, they have to adjust to a new country and start a new life, and they have a lot of urgent needs, Elis says. She says a barrier to these resources is not knowing they exist, which even many Canadian-born clients aren’t aware they can access, such as the Fair Pass Transit Discount and the Childcare Subsidy program.

    Part of the grant was also used to ensure this vital support could continue after the funding ended by providing training to food space managers so each of them could take on some responsibilities of case management.

    However, North York Harvest is still looking for grants to continue to fund and expand this work to support our clients in the next steps toward stability and well-being.

  5. Busting food bank myths with Feed Ontario!

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    Busting food bank myths with Feed Ontario!

    “Why don’t food bank users just get a job?”

    “If we increase social assistance, won’t that make people not want to work?”

    Food banks have been getting a lot of media attention due to the overwhelming demand for emergency food support. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation is also being spread about what is causing this crisis.

    In December, Feed Ontario hosted a panel discussion to bust some of these myths and misconceptions in our sector. We joined colleagues from food banks across the province to field questions pertaining to our work and the people who access our services.

    Chiara Padovani, North York Harvest’s Senior Specialist, Advocacy and Community Engagement, joined the panel to tackle questions from Ontarians about who is really causing the housing crisis, the realities of living on social assistance, and the solutions desperately needed to reduce food bank use.

    Watch the full panel below

    Thank you to Feed Ontario for having us and thanks to our fellow panelists:
    Myles Vanni – Inn of the Good Shepherd, Sarnia
    June Muir – UHC -Hub of Opportunities, Windsor
    Robbie Donaldson – Salvation Army – New Liskeard

  6. Food for Thought: Food banks need solutions, not scapegoats

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    Food banks need solutions, not scapegoats

    In our Food for Thought series, individuals within North York Harvest Food Bank will share their experience in matters pertaining to food insecurity and poverty. This series will share ideas, lessons learned, and challenge misconceptions as we work toward our vision of a community where all members are able to meet their food needs.

    Written by Chiara Padovani; Senior Specialist, Advocacy and Community Engagement

    I’ve been a food bank worker at North York Harvest for almost a decade. I have dedicated my life’s work to ensuring people in my community have enough food to eat: a basic human right that is needed in order for people to stay alive.  I’m glad the crisis in food banks is getting attention, but I’d like to set the record straight.

    Yes, there is a crisis in our food banks. Yes, there’s an affordability crisis in our city. But no, international students or immigrants are not to blame.  Everyday, food banks encounter heartbreaking stories of people who through no fault of their own cannot manage to keep themselves and their families fed.  They’re battling an impossible system that bears down on them every day with no reprieve. And every day I have to contend with the fact that I will never be able to fully solve the problems that they’re dealing with, I can only offer some food support so that they don’t go hungry.

    Two months ago I met an international student, *Sharla, who came to our food bank for the first time and she was panicked. She said she had to cut

    At North York Harvest's Community Advocacy Group town hall, a client attaches a Post-It note with a number ranking the importance of newcomer and immigration supports.the hours she was working in half because of a new immigration policy limiting how many hours international students can work. Suddenly out of nowhere, she had to survive on half her income and didn’t know how she could afford to pay the rent. In the same breath she asked me about volunteering at the food bank because now she can’t work full time.

    These are the people we’re told are taking advantage of our food banks? Or causing the affordability crisis? Give me a break. It’s scapegoating, and we don’t have to buy it.  I will not sit silently while the work that I have been dedicating my life to has been weaponized to push an anti-immigrant and xenophobic narrative that does nothing to serve regular people who are struggling day to day, and only serves as a distraction from a broken economic system. 

    In fact, Sharla’s story sounds a lot like every other person’s story who comes through our doors whether they were born in Canada or not. 

    Here’s the truth: the affordability crisis we’re facing in Toronto and across the country has nothing to do with what country your neighbour, classmate or coworker was born in – and believing it does, is just a distraction from the real problem. 

    The number one reason people come to food banks is because they can’t afford their rent. Sharla isn’t raising your rent – your landlord is, and the provincial government isn’t just letting them get away with it, they’re making it easier by removing rent controls. 

    The largest group of new food bank clients are workers, which means even if you’re working full time, you still can’t afford the groceries you need. Sharla doesn’t cut your hours or pay you a wage you can’t afford to live on – your employer does, and the provincial government is incentivizing them to do so by refusing to legislate equal pay for part-time, casual, contract or temporary work. 

    Scapegoating immigrants, international students, migrants and refugees isn’t just a harmful distraction from the real problem, it also gets us further and further away from the solutions we actually need.  Newcomers like Sharla are not the reason your rent is unaffordable, that the company you work for is extracting as much profit as they can without compensating you fairly, that grocery prices are too high, that formerly stable well-paying jobs are being replaced with temp labour. This is our fault, not theirs. We have enabled this system to thrive and to push our communities to the brink.

    Because instead of implementing rent control to stabilize skyrocketing rents or implementing equal pay legislation to curb the rise of low-wage, precarious work – the kind of things that would help everyone and reduce the need for food banks in the first place – we’re being sold that the solution to our problem is just making life more difficult for Sharla? 

    I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t either. Sharla deserves better than this, and so do we.

    *Name changed to protect client privacy

  7. Flood protection funding is a community victory!

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    Flood protection funding is a community victory!

    On July 16, North York Harvest Food Bank was hit hard by a devastating flood that resulted in a power outage, infrastructure damage, and $20,000 of spoiled food.

    Our community has faced terrible floods before, and we knew it wasn’t if, but when it would happen again.

    Several of our partner agencies and countless community members were also reeling from the effects: displaced from their homes, property damage, loss of essential food supplies and services, and more.

    After the flood, North York Harvest Food Bank, Youth Without Shelter, Room to Grow Food Bank, the Mount Dennis Community Association, and the Black Creek

    A crowd of people including Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh listens as North York Harvest Executive Director Ryan Noble gives a tour of the facility

    Alliance joined together to discuss the effects of the flood, and how we could move collaboratively toward solutions.

    Our discussions emphasized the urgent support needed from the government to alleviate the strain on our non-profits and our community.

    We were joined by Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who met with community members affected by the flood, amplified our concerns and supported our call for long-term solutions in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    On August 30 an investment of $323-million from the City of Toronto and the federal government was announced to bolster the Rockcliffe-Smythe area against future flooding!

    A man stands and gives a presentation during a community discussion at North York Harvest Food Bank with a whiteboard in the background covered in notes.“This is the power of advocacy and community,” says Ryan Noble, Executive Director of North York Harvest Food Bank. “When we come together and fight for our community, we win. When we join our voices together and put pressure on the government to notice, it can work.

    “We’re proud to have stood with our partners and neighbours who have been raising alarm bells about this issue for years, and we’re hopeful it will bring relief for our community.”

    Several people stand in front of a backdrop with the North York Harvest Food Bank logo, smiling for a group picture.