Calendar - Foodshare

FoodShare Toronto is an innovative non-profit community food organization whose programs include direct fresh
produce access, childhood nutrition and education, community cooking, community growing, and urban agriculture.
FoodShare reaches over 145,000 children and adults every single month across the City of Toronto, bringing healthy food
and food skills to millions every year.
Violetta Cardella
Jolene Casella (Co-Secretary)
Michael Firmani (Co-Vice Chair)
Aruna Handa
Dr. Julia Lee (Co-Secretary)
Alexandra Maric-Jones
Maria Nunes (Co-Vice Chair)
Jenn Pfenning
Liam McQuade
Marisa Piattelli
Wayne Roberts
Christopher Singh (Treasurer)
Abigail Slater
Hélène St. Jacques
Sarah Takaki
Wendy Wright (Chair)
Student Nutrition • Field to Table Schools • the Good Food Café • Focus on Food Youth Internships
Good Food Box • Good Food Markets • Fresh Produce for Schools and Community Agencies
Baby and Toddler Nutrition • Community Kitchens • Field to Table Catering • FoodLink Hotline • Power Soups
Community Gardening • Composting • Beekeeping • Urban Agriculture • Sunshine and Bendale Market Gardens
Smells of delicious home cooking, the energy of people as diverse
as our entire city coming together around healthy food, vibrant
community gardens, successful student nutrition programs,
children gleefully learning Food Literacy and choosing healthy
meals, fresh produce delivered to schools and families across
Toronto, and our Good Food Markets, bringing healthy food and
building community in under-resourced areas where fresh food has
been so hard to find.
These accomplishments highlight the power of food, the power of
community – and the power of sharing.
With your help, FoodShare has become Canada’s largest community food security organization. We impact more than 145,000 children
and adults every single month across the city – millions per year – bringing fresh, nutritious, affordable food, and cultivating the
knowledge and skills that build healthy communities. By sharing with us, you have helped create so many important innovations, allowing
FoodShare to share with so many, and, community by community, the impact grows as skills and resources are passed along to many more.
Warmest thanks to all who support FoodShare: our visionary donors, core funders United Way Toronto and the City of Toronto,
and all the foundations, faith groups, unions, and levels of government, who in combination with hundreds of volunteers, our
staff and community partners have helped FoodShare to make such a difference in the lives of millions across the City of Toronto.
Special thanks this year to the Government of Ontario for their funding of programs to increase access to local food in schools.
Please know that you are welcome to visit FoodShare’s exciting non-profit Field to Table Community Food
Hub at 90 Croatia Street to share with us the hope that inspires us every day, and see your support at work.
(Please call 416.363.6441 ext 272 to arrange your tour.)
Adrienne De Francesco (Fundraising & Communications)........ 226
Delsie Hyatt (Good Food Box) ....................................................................234
Alvin Rebick (Kitchen & Good Food Café) .............................................251
Doug Whittle (Good Food Programs) .....................................................244
Amelia Boyd (Student Nutrition) ..............................................................271
Edward Scott (Good Food Programs) .....................................................244
Ana Maria Santinoli (Community Food Animation) ......................277
Fiona Bowser (Student Nutrition) ............................................................265
Angela ElzingaCheng (Community Food Programs) ....................227
Glenn Kitchener (School and Bulk Produce) ......................................242
Angie Olmstead (Student Nutrition) ......................................................255
Gloria Padilla (Finance) ................................................................................237
Ayesha Khalid (Student Nutrition) ...........................................................263
Abdul Haseeb (Good Food Programs) ...................................................244
Bill Jenei (Good Food Programs) ...............................................................244
Iris Martinez-Siles (Student Nutrition) ..................................................262
Brenda Riccardi (Student Nutrition) .......................................................259
Jackson Foster (Good Food Programs) .................................................242
Brooke Ziebell (Field to Table Schools) ..................................................278
James Davis (Field to Table Schools)........................................................248
Cafeon Nembhard (Good Food Programs) .........................................243
Jesus Gomez (Kitchen & Good Food Café) ...........................................235
Carolynne Crawley (Field to Table Schools).........................................239
Julia Rhodes (Fundraising) ..........................................................................272
Debbie Field (Executive Director) .............................................................228
Justin Nadeau (Urban Agriculture) .........................................................280
Kim Houchen (Student Nutrition) ............................................................258
Opal Sparks (Tours and Information) .....................................................252
Katie Willoughby (Administration) ........................................................273
Rachel Van Sligtenhorst (Operations and Events) .........................222
Leonard Abel (Kitchen and Good Food Café) .....................................251
Robyn Shyllit (Communications) .............................................................282
Lesley Ritchi (Student Nutrition) ...............................................................270
Ron Hardy (Good Food Programs) ...........................................................244
Liz Kirk (Urban Agriculture) ..........................................................................225
Sarosh Anwar (Good Food Markets) .......................................................241
Luam Kidane (Youth Intern Programs) ..................................................238
Sherri-Anne Medema (Student Nutrition) .........................................254
Mary Roufail (Community Food Animation) ......................................227
Sybil Pinnock (Catering, Power Soups) ..................................................232
Mat Palmer (Student Nutrition) .................................................................271
Toni Panzuto (Baby and Toddler Nutrition, Volunteers) .................253
Meredith Hayes (Schools and Student Nutrition) ............................240
Tony Metatawabin (Kitchen & Good Food Café) ..............................251
Mike Nevin (Composting) ............................................................................231
Ulla Knowles (Student Nutrition) ..............................................................266
Moorthi Senaratne (Good Food Programs) .......................................244
Uriah Martin (Good Food Programs) ......................................................244
Mylee Nordin (Beekeeping) ........................................................................241
Utcha Sawyers (Community Food Animation) .................................225
Nadira Yasmin (Student Nutrition) ..........................................................260
Victor Park (Good Food Programs) ..........................................................244
Nicole Surman (Good Food Programs) .................................................243
Zahra Parvinian (Social Enterprise) .........................................................233
Noellie Sotomayor (Student Nutrition) ................................................268
Zola Dyer (Finance)..........................................................................................229
FoodShare’s Good Food Programs connect families and communities with affordable fresh culturally diverse vegetables and fruit, build
communities, increase the consumption of healthy produce and improve the income of small family farms. The Good Food Box delivers
top-quality fresh produce through 200 volunteer-run drops in which neighbours meet and form communities. Customers pay the cost of the
produce itself, starting at just $13, while distribution is subsidized. We deliver 50,000 bountiful boxes every year, serving 7,000 families and
saving them an average of $9 per month. FoodShare provides training and produce to support the operation of 17 Good Food Markets run by
local groups in Food Deserts. These vibrant markets make available the same top-quality fruits and vegetables, but allow shoppers to purchase in
quantities that meet their cash flow needs, at the same time creating vibrant public spaces and breaking down social isolation. FoodShare’s Fresh
Produce Program for Schools and Agencies provides affordable and healthy fresh produce delivered directly to 250 schools, child care centres
and community agencies on a weekly basis, serving 67,000 children weekly. Our Field to Table Community Food Hub, with support from
the Ontario Government, is now also working to develop a distribution system that will ensure that Broader Public Sector public institutions
like schools can buy quality Ontario produce for food programs, further increasing the market for Ontario farmers.
The kitchen is at the heart of FoodShare. Every day our kitchen staff lovingly prepare and serve fresh, healthy, affordable, multiculturally sensitive food to our family of staff, volunteers and guests. A hub of learning and joy, FoodShare’s kitchen provides hands-on
capacity building through hundreds of cooking and budgeting workshops, prepares nutrient-dense Power Soups that are delivered
by community agencies to the homeless, supports more than 50 Community Kitchens across the city, houses our Baby and Toddler
Nutrition program whose peer trainers support parents in 8 languages, models healthy, home-made sustainable food through our
award winning Field to Table Catering, and, working closely with the Good Food Program, provides employment experience and
life skills training for youth in our Focus on Food internship program.
FoodShare promotes Community Gardening and Urban Agriculture everywhere from the grounds of social housing buildings to
abandoned lots to schoolyards and city parks, where gardeners grow food for their families, build community, beautify neighbourhoods
and learn nature’s cycles. Our mid-scale Composting operation produces over 25,000 pounds of the city’s best compost every year,
processing scraps from our kitchen and produce programs to feed our gardens. In our onsite Greenhouse and Demonstration
Gardens, we grow hundreds of pounds of organic food for our kitchen and teach children and community members how easy it
is to grow bounties in small spaces. We also work actively in a number of growing partnerships, supporting hundreds of gardens
through the Toronto Community Gardening Network, bringing together urban farmers in the Toronto Urban Growers network,
and supporting beehives that produce honey in the city in partnership with the Toronto Beekeepers Cooperative. Working with the
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) we run the Sunshine Garden, Toronto’s first market garden, and working with
the school itself, we facilitate the Bendale Market Garden, Toronto’s first school market garden.
FoodShare recognizes that long-term systems change and Good Healthy Food for All can only happen when we work together,
creating solutions that build on the energy and strengths of many. For over 27 years we have worked in social housing buildings
with tenant associations to develop food programs. We partner deeply in many of Toronto’s communities to build on existing
strengths and knowledge to grow solutions. FoodShare’s community food animators work side by side with neighbourhood leaders
and community organizations, to help bring food to life with Good Food Markets, Community Gardens and Community
Kitchens, supporting communities in meeting their own food needs and creating healthy futures. This community development
partnership model means that our work is leveraged exponentially, garnering impacts that grow as each resource or tool is adapted
and passed along to others.
FoodShare is the only organization in North America providing a multi-faceted approach to school food. We created the model for
Student Nutrition Programs, and in partnership with school boards and Toronto Public Health provide grassroots organizing for
800 universal student nutrition programs in which 141,000 students enjoy healthy culturally appropriate meals daily. Our Fresh
Produce Program for Schools delivers affordable bulk access to healthy vegetables and fruit. The Field to Table Schools program
works with educators, parents and students, implementing hands-on curriculum-supporting cooking and gardening activities from
JK through Grade 12 with the goal of making Food Literacy a requirement of graduation. Our Good Food Café, which the Toronto
Star called “the future of school lunches,” demonstrates children choosing healthy foods in a cafeteria program. In partnership with
the school, we support Canada’s first school-based Market Garden at Bendale Business and Technical Institute, where students
plant, grow, and harvest vegetables on the school lawns and in the greenhouse, cook the food in culinary arts classes, and serve it in
the cafeteria, proving that healthy food and Food Literacy can be fully integrated. All these programs working together are resulting
in a massive movement of behavioural change in which students eat home-cooked healthy food, locally grown whenever possible,
when their schools implement successful programs that FoodShare has pioneered.
At FoodShare we think it is important to freely share tools, resources, policies and programs with everyone who can use and benefit
from them. We share all that we do, taking an “open source” approach that honours the fact that we are all part of a movement
working toward change and the vision of a just food system. Our staff of experts – every one a passionate food security community
development worker and an educator – support and mentor communities in drawing on their own strengths to adapt and grow our
solutions. FoodShare works quite literally “from field to table,” taking an innovative multi-faceted and long-term approach to hunger
and food issues, and working to empower through food-based initiatives while at the same time advocating for the broader public
policies needed to ensure that everyone has adequate access to sustainably produced, good healthy food. Each week we answer calls
and emails and host visitors from across Ontario, Canada and now internationally, who seek our advice in starting similar programs in
their own communities. Through our manuals, website and this support, we provide replicable models, and can now count hundreds
of programs across the country we have helped start, reaching tens of thousands of people.
FoodShare pioneers by creating empowering tools and scalable solutions, sharing freely these resources
in an “open source” approach. Our staff work to support and mentor communities in drawing on their
own strengths to adapt and grow solutions. This community development partnership model means
that our work is leveraged exponentially, garnering impacts that grow as information and skills are
adapted and passed along to others and ensuring that each dollar we invest in our programs multiplies,
impacting the greatest number of people, providing tools and support that continue giving.
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Long-term Vision to ending hunger from all angles, working ‘from field to table’ to empower
people by creating Canada’s most successful non-profit food hub, connecting urban dwellers directly to fresh produce, to local farmers to each other, and to the cooking and growing skills
needed to choose healthy food for a healthy future.
Universal Programs help everyone overcome hurdles to “say yes to healthy food,” while removing
stigma for those who will benefit most deeply.
Community Development Partnership Model supports communities with information and
tools (so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel), honours neighbourhood leadership and strength
to adapt and grow, and creates long-term solutions with ever-increasing impacts.
Sustainable Social Enterprise Programs pay farmers fairly while making quality produce and
home cooked meals accessible to all through subsidized food distribution models, the Field to
Table Community Food Hub and Field to Table Catering.
Debbie Field, Executive Director
All photos by Laura Berman
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