Harvesting Kindness to Help Fight Hunger

 

By Michelle Rivard

Home-cooked meals - they’re something we often take for granted. You’re hungry, so you reach in to the cupboards and whip something up. But accessibility to food isn’t as easy for everyone as it is for you and me. Today one in four Toronto children live in poverty. Three well-balanced, healthy meals aren’t a guarantee. Often parents have to choose between being homeless or being hungry.

This is where Second Harvest comes in to play. Through its network of eight trucks, Second Harvest collects perishable food items and puts them to use before they expire. Meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables - most of which would end up in a landfill - are donated to help those in need. Youth shelters, isolated seniors, new immigrants, women in crisis and school nutrition programs all benefit from Second Harvest’s programs.

I met with the organization’s Executive Director, Jo-Anne Sobie, on February 16th, Lunch Money Day, to discuss the event and the benefits of Second Harvest.

Lunch Money Day has been an annual event in Toronto for the past 14 years. It’s a simple concept, really; Second Harvest asks you to donate what you would usually spend on lunch to help those suffering from hunger. With 400 volunteers in the PATH, TTC stations and at an event at Yonge-Dundas Square, the 2012 goal was to raise $262,000. That amount of money would provide over half a million meals to people in need in the GTA.

Volunteers from companies like Magic Oven, Jack Astors, Caplansky’s and MLSE were on hand selling food to benefit Lunch Money Day. Not unlike the other food truck events we have in Toronto, but this event was entirely benefitting those in our city who are hungry. Other companies are supporting Lunch Money Day in different ways; Dufflet’s Pastries is selling “Cowboy Cookies” for the month of February with proceeds going to Second Harvest. You may have also seen jars asking you to “Peas Donate” and “Give a Buck” at your favourite Starbucks. Second Harvest and its network of agencies takes care of some of Toronto’s neediest people and they do it without one dollar of government funding.

While it may be easy for us to forget that dinner is not a guarantee for all, it shouldn’t be hard for us to reach in to our pockets and help an organization doing so much for so many.