This past Sunday, for the 8th year in a row, we took part in the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon! It was cold. It was snowing. But all participants were still in great spirits!
Our goal was to raise $15,000 in order to provide 45,000 meals to our neighbours that are hungry.
WE’RE ALMOST THERE! We’ve already exceeded $12,000!
Even though the race is over, YOU can still be a part of the team!
DON’T DELAY – Donations can only be made until the end of October so please DONATE NOW
Thank you to all our participants for getting up to race with us at 8:00 in the morning on a chilly Sunday. Your dedication will to help feed people in your community. We’d also like to extend our gratitude to the donors and sponsors for your generosity!
We were excited to be joined by many of our veteran teammates in person and spirit. Including the Fun Runners team with Peter Zissis and Chris Hilborn, who have been running with NYH for 8 years! We also had some new faces, including Executive Director Ryan Noble and Board Member Tony Cancelliere.
Our incredible teams this year were:
Fun Runners with Peter Zissis & Chris Hilborn
The Accidental Roamers with Anoop Chawla & Anette Chawla and team
NYH team – Leslie, Ryan, Emma, Sophia, Tony Cancelliere & Harold Banguero and family
Kevin Munn and family
And as always, our tradition at the race is the Treasurer of the Board (Kevin Munn) best represented our team by wearing a great costume!
What our team had to say:
“Taking part in the charity walk was a lot of fun and a great feeling – there was a great sense of community among the participants that represented all walks of life” – Tony Cancelliere
“I had my best time ever and also helped families.” – Accidental Roamers
“It was a lot of fun to walk with all my friends at the Scotiabank Marathon and see the thousands of other people. We also raised money for the food bank.” – AR
“My kids and I were super excited for the event. It was the best 5KM yet Thank you to family and friends for supporting the North York Harvest Food Bank!” – Leslie Venturino
Today is World Food Day and we want to know what it means to you?
Does it make you think about all of your favourite foods?
How they taste or smell?
How they are made?
Where they come from?
Or does it make you think about people who may not have enough food to eat?
World Food Day was created to be a day of action against hunger across the world. October 16th was declared World Food Day in 1945 by the United Nations in an effort to end hunger.
Many people don’t think of their community when they think of hunger in the world. It seems to be something that you only really see on television or in the news. But the reality is that almost 1 million Canadians use a food bank every month. 13,000 of them happen to be your own neighbours.
Hunger and the need for help can happen to anyone. Low wages, loss of a job, family tragedy, health issues, and many more reasons contribute to poverty in Toronto. 54% of the people that use our services have skipped meals in order to pay for other things such as utilities, rent, transportation or even so their own children can have a meal. A parent never wants to make the choice between feeding their children and paying the rent.
What can you do to help?
There are many ways that you can get involved in your community and help put an end to hunger in your own backyard.
It’s Thanksgiving weekend! I hope you are all looking forward to enjoying time and a nice meal with all of your families.
As I think about the abundance of delicious food that will be set at my table, I also am confronted with a troubling thought. Many families in our very own community will not have the luxury to sit down to a large dinner with their loved ones. Many won’t even have enough food to fill their bellies.
It’s a tough thing to think about. Thanksgiving is the time of year when we celebrate and are thankful for what we have and the food at our table. But it’s hard for someone to be thankful when they don’t have enough food to eat.
That is where YOU come in! Because of the incredible support from caring people like you, many of our neighbours are able to access nutritious food to feed their families.
As the weather gets colder and we get ready for Thanksgiving, the NYH Annual Fall Food Drive to raise $100,000 and 100,000 pounds of food to provide 300,000 meals for our neighbours in need is in full swing. Your support will make an amazing difference in the lives of so many families in Toronto. Just $1 can provide 3 meals. Your small act of kindness today will make a lot of parents and children nourished and happy. Will you consider helping us reach this goal?
If you don’t have time to set up a food & fund drive yourself, donate online or make a food donation at local grocery stores and fire halls. For a list of where you can donate groceries, please click here.
Not sure what kind of items to donate? Here’s a handy list of food items that are in high demand, especially around this time of year.
If you are digging through your pantry to find items to donate, be sure that they are not expired. Items that are past the best before date are accepted. For more information on expiry and best before dates, check out our blog post.
You can make a difference in the lives of 13,000 parents, children and grandparents that rely on food banks every month. It is because of generous people like you that we can make hunger in Canada a thing of the past.
Let’s make this Thanksgiving a holiday that everyone can be thankful for.
Comments Off on Agency Profile: Room to Grow Empowers Participants
When you picture a trip to a food bank, you probably don’t envision the most pleasant experience. And hey, that’s fair. While food banks are a vital community service, accessing them can sometimes be an embarrassing and anxiety inducing experience. To deal with this reality, North York Harvest, and food banks around Canada are investing in a model that helps make the experiencing of coming to a food bank more empowering and dignified for the participant.
For the answers I went to Aja Peterson, North York Harvest’s Agency Development Coordinator who has been championing the choice model for many years and as part of North York Harvest’s Agency Investment Project. The program, generously funded by Trillium, the RBC Foundation and individual donors like you, is a three year pilot project designed to build the capacity of our member agencies and ensure that agency clients are receiving the most dignified service, are being connected to other support systems in the community, and are able to focus on their lives without worrying where their next meal will come from. The choice model aligns with all of these goals, making it a natural fit for agencies participating in the project.
“I think at its core the choice model helps people to better understand each other” Aja told me. “It breaks down stereotypes, and creates a more empowering environment, which is one of the Agency Investment Projects main objectives.”
Over the last few months Aja has been hard at work helping North York Harvest member agency Room to Grow Food Bank make the switch to the choice model. Operating out of Westway United Church, Room to Grow partners with the Room to Grow Child Centre, and serves low-income residents in the Central Etobicoke area.
When participants arrive at Room to Grow, rather than receiving a box of pre-picked items, they are encouraged to put together their own food hamper which will suit their own cultural and health requirements. The process has gone a long way towards empowering participants, but how has it worked for food bank staff and volunteers?
“Like any change, it was a bit scary at first, but the volunteers at Room to Grow were so receptive to new ideas, and really supported the transition to the choice model”, said Aja said.“They tell me all the time how great it is to interact with their fellow community members and how they are building more meaningful relationships, getting more face-to-face time with participants, and getting to know their stories and more about their families”.
Of course beyond volunteer adoption, there are many other factors that go into choice model integration. A project of this size requires capital, space, training, shelves, purchased food and staff support, which necessitates a large investment of time, resources and money. This is why we continue to look to your donations, as they ensure that programs like the choice model will continue to thrive.
When I ask Aja if she’s noticed any changes at Room to Grow since the transition she seems thrilled with the progress.
“Before the switch to the new model the division between the participants and volunteers was very pronounced. All the food was behind dividers which made the room feel dark and cramped, and bit suspicious because you couldn’t really see what was going on behind the walls. Now we’ve taken down the dividers and the room feels brighter, warmer and more welcoming. We have more space to walk around and it really feels like a community hub, rather then a waiting room.”
“Room to Grow is doing so well”, she continued. “They have the capacity, the right attitude and are really working hard to make sure that this project is successful.
Choice model food banks like Room to Grow aren’t just making the food bank experience more empowering, they are helping to build community and connection out of a very tough situation. We at North York Harvest know that the choice model is the best thing for our member agencies and hope that this system will become a staple of our organization.
What can you do to help? Help agencies like Room to Grow by making a donation today. Your support will enable NYH to continue investing in our agencies, providing training, building capacity like new shelves, storage or fridges as well as contribute to acquiring better food, which ensures that our participants have a greater variety of fresh and healthy food to choose from.
Comments Off on Toronto’s Poverty Strategy Focuses On Food Security
Toronto is our home town. If you’re like me, whenever you speak with people from outside the city, it can be hard not to get swept up in the positives. We love the city’s history, cultural vibrancy and diversity. Some days I wonder if I could ever live anywhere else. However, we’ve probably romanticized our city. Toronto has a darker side, serious problems that are too easy to ignore.
Last week you might have notice that the city of Toronto released TO Prosperity, a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy. In the introduction, Deputy Mayor Pam Mcconnell wrote openly about how, despite Toronto’s reputation as a prosperous city and a centre of economic growth, our poverty problem has become impossible to ignore. 1/4 of Toronto’s children live in poverty. So do 46% of new comers to Canada, 33% of racialized groups, and 30% of people with disabilities.
“This inequality is simply unacceptable. Toronto can do better”, wrote Mcconnell.
As the primary food bank for northern Toronto, we whole heartedly agree with this statement. I know you do too! Everyday at North York Harvest we witness the impact of poverty in our communities, and strategize about how, together, we can continue to make improvements. We’re lucky to know that we can rely on your donations to help put food on our neighbour’s tables, but at the same time, we know that for things to truly get better we need a serious commitment from our city’s government to address the growing poverty in our communities. TO Prosperity is a step in the right direction.
As you probably know, a major contributor to the city’s poverty is lack of access to affordable and healthy food. It’s no secret that a plentiful and nutritious diet leads to healthier kids, more productive adults, and stronger communities. Yet in many of the city’s neighbourhoods, good food is very hard to come by. Since 2008 Toronto’s inner suburbs have seen a 38% increase in food bank visits, with over 1 million visits a year. It’s an alarming number, and one that might have you asking, ‘In a wealthy city like Toronto, with so much food available, why are so many people going without?’
Well, the problem isn’t so much that the food isn’t there, but that it’s unavailable to so many of our neighbours. Farmer’s markets, grocery stores and restaurants are all abundant in TO, but their prices have become so high that they exclude a large part of the city’s community members. Markets and sources of fresh produce also tend to avoid low income neighbourhoods, leading to large urban areas referred to as “food deserts”. To sum it up, the problem isn’t a lack of food, but a lack of income.
To combat this, the committee has put forward some recommendations and actions aimed at bringing healthy and affordable food into Toronto’s less prosperous neighbourhoods. If you haven’t had a chance to look through them yet, take a look, and then head on to Twitter – Do you agree? Is it enough? What else can we do?
Some of the key actions that stuck out to us will seek to:
“Develop mechanisms that make it easy and cost-effective for community agencies and schools to procure healthy food.” – 11.1
“Encourage local markets in public spaces, and open civic land and spaces to host food markets.” – 11.4
“Support mechanisms to increase student nutrition programs in collaboration with school boards.” – 11.6
“Remove barriers (zoning, licensing, planning) to maximize urban agriculture and food production on public and private space and land.” – 12.1
“Create clear policies that support the 30 development of community kitchens, outdoor bake ovens, community cooking classes and other food-oriented activities that support social cohesion and food access, and create economic opportunities.” – 12.3
In particular, action 10.3 – “Support food banks to improve the quality of their food stock, provide culturally specific food, and increase access and eligibility to food for people in need”, really struck a chord with our team.
Your generous donations keep food in our neighbour’s cupboards stocked, but as the demand continues to grow, we’re constantly striving to improve the quality of our services, by providing a greater quantity of fresh and culturally specific food options. We recently invested in a new fridge triple the size our old one, and a freezer double the size of our old one, allowing us to accept and distribute more of your fresh produce and food donations. This means that, this month, a young child gets to bring nutritious lunch to camp, or a new Canadian family will get to enjoy seasonal local produce around the dinner table.
If you are as passionate about the Poverty Reduction Strategy as we are, please consider contacting your city councillor and letting them know that you support the plan. The final strategy will be brought to council in the fall, with hopes to include it in the 2106 budget. You can read the entire report here.
Comments Off on Catelli Pasta, Top Chefs & Feeding Hope
Whether you’re an athlete trying to fuel up before the big event, or a family settling in for a good meal, more often than not pasta is a very welcome addition to any dinner table. I know for me, nothing beats cooking up a fresh lasagna with a group of friends, or enjoying warm bowl of spaghetti after a long day. That’s why I was so excited to find out that Catelli Pasta was spearheading a project that would allow pasta lovers like me to expand their cooking horizons with some great new recipes, and support their local food bank at the same time.
The campaign is called Help Us Feed the Hope, and its working to help pasta fans make a difference through their everyday shopping and cooking. Since April, Catelli has been running a coast-to-coast in-store promotion where they donate a serving of pasta to food banks nationally for every box of pasta purchased. “Summer is the slowest donation time for food banks, so this initiative helps the hungry when they need it most”, said Sandra Kim, Director of Marketing for Catelli. “Catelli is pleased to have the opportunity to help Canada’s food banks and make it easier than ever for Canadians across the country to join in the fight against hunger.”
Feed the Hope also centres around a free on-line cookbook named the“Catelli Pasta Boost”. To create the cookbook Catelli teamed up a group of top chefs as well as some of Canada’s Pan Am Games athletes to create recipes that are both delicious, healthy and pack an energy boost. Each time you share the cookbook over Facebook, Catelli will donate one serving of pasta to a local food bank. Incredibly, just a few months into the campaign, Catelli has nearly hit its goal of 1 million servings donated!
We at the North York Harvest got to see the impact of this amazing project first hand yesterday when chef Daniel Schick, executive chef at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto and cook book contributor, stopped by to donate of 13 skids of Pasta on behalf of Catelli. This donation will go a long way towards feeding our neighbours in need, especially during our slower summer months.
Beside the fact that it helped to raise so many meals for our community, the cookbook is a real treat for any adventurous food lover. Recipes for Whole Wheat Linguini with Chicken Confit and Lemon Oil, Tortoglioni with Middle Eastern Chicken, and Wild Salmon Carbonara immediately got my mouth watering. But hey, don’t take my word for, check it out for yourself. It’s free and takes only a few seconds to access.
Help a neighbour and need, and all I need to do is check out a great cook book? Seems like a no brainer right? Head on over to Catelli’s Facebook page and start making a difference today.
From May 2nd – 8th, North York Harvest Food Bank will be joining food banks across Canada for the Every Plate Full Food Drive.
This Summer 918,724 Canadians will access food banks. It’s a staggering number, and unfortunately, due to lower donations throughout the summer months, many food banks will struggle to keep up with the demand. This problem has sparked the Every Plate Full Food Drive, a campaign organized by Food Banks Canada, bringing food banks across the country together with the goal to fill the plates of every hungry Canadian this summer.
We at the North York Harvest Food Bank are thrilled to be a part of this initiative, and we need your donations to help make this drive a success. Every $1 you donate to NYHFB’s Every Plate Full Drive will provide 3 meals for someone in need.
This year we’ve set a big goal of 30,000 meals raised and we can’t get there without your help. Visit our Every Plate Full Drive page today to start a team, make a donation, or learn more about the campaign.
Comments Off on Agency Profile: Visiting Community Share Food Bank
It was a beautiful spring morning when I arrived at the Church of Ascension in Toronto’s Don Mills neighbourhood. I was there to visit Community Share Food Bank, one of the larger North York Harvest member agencies, who are trying to bring a higher degree of dignity to the food bank experience.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably created a composite sketch in your mind of what the typical food bank would look like: cramped quarters, long lines, and worried faces might come to mind. But walking in the front door of Community Share I was struck by the warm and familiar environment that was in front of me. I was greeted by several smiling volunteers who walked me past tables and chairs that were arranged throughout the large gymnasium space to create a waiting area that felt like a neighbourhood café. Clients sipped coffee, ate some cake and chatted with neighbours and volunteers.
“Sometimes people come just for the fellowship”, said Sherrie, a delightfully enthusiastic volunteer who has worked at community share for the past two years. “We have clients who will come multiple times before they take any donations; they just feel accepted and want to be part of a welcoming environment.”
Sherrie is one of the nearly 100 volunteers that help support Community Share’s weekly programs. The food bank runs twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and offers clients pre-made food hampers, as well as access to a clothing closet, and a referral service. On any given day they can serve up to 70 families.
Beyond food and clothing distribution the organization has evolved into a multi-purpose community agency partnering with neighbourhood organizations like Better Living, Overland School, Don Mills Family Health Team and Toronto Employment Services. They are currently working on building a community kitchen program in partnership with the Flemington Community Health Centre, and have a very successful and beautiful garden which provides produce to the food bank. They recently offered a Safe Food Handling training certification course that was well attended, and in the near future hope to offer a container gardening workshop.
When I remarked to Sherrie how upbeat the mood of the room was, she seemed happy, but unsurprised. “We try to make coming to the food bank a more intimate experience. We get to know our clients and try to find out what they need. Maybe that’s trying to remember their taste in food, or keeping an eye out for specialized clothing items like a warmer coat or maternity clothes.”
With food bank use up across the province, Community Share has seen an influx in first time users, and from what I saw it’s clear that they have endeavoured to make it their initial experience a dignified one. “Obviously most of these people are not in a place where they want to be”, said Sherrie. “We try to be extra welcoming, because it’s got to be difficult for new users, the idea that this is reality.”
When I spoke with Melissa, a client, she was candid about how hard the adjustment can be. “Many of the people who come here are smart people who had good jobs. But things can happen. I know, because they happened to me” she said. “I worked at a corporate company for 40 years, but had to leave after a very bad bout of depression. Soon my money ran out and I had to start coming here, which was difficult at first, but becomes easier after some repetition. It helps that everyone is so nice, and non-judgemental. “
Like many of the clients, Melissa also volunteers her time at Community Share, feeling a need to contribute to the place that had provided so much assistance. “I can’t imagine just coming here and getting the food. Being a volunteer gives me sense that I’m giving back, and working for what I’m getting”
When it comes to food distribution, Community Share works with North York Harvest Food Bank, and also has a small purchasing budget to make sure their shelves are full. Joyce, one of the longest serving volunteers has been with Community Share since the beginning and has seen first-hand the progress the organization has made. “I started volunteering here about 12 years ago, and it’s been exciting to watch whole thing grow over time” she told me. “The process has become so much more organized, and standardized which has allowed us to establish a better and more regular service”.
Still, she stressed that working at an organization so dependent on donations can be hard, and that sometimes the demand can outweigh their ability to provide. “One of our biggest problems is getting too much of one type of food, and not enough of another. We are always short on canned fish, canned fruits and vegetables, chickpeas and lentils. Diapers as well are something that our clients are consistently looking for, that we can’t always deliver.”
Around 11:30 am the food bank began to shut down for the day. Some clients had left by this point, but others stuck around to help pack up and share a few words with many of the volunteers. The warm, smiles that had greeted me when I first arrived had not faded away from frustration. Instead, people seemed more optimistic than ever. It was clear to me that Community Share has become more to its users then a place to get their next meal. To them it represented acceptance, understanding and hope for the future.
To support our member community agencies like Community Share, please make a donation to the North York Harvest Food Bank today.
