Yonge Street Mission seeks corporate help
Charity hopes donations from companies will feed 2,000 people a week
In the past nine weeks, the demand for food at Toronto’s Yong e Street Mission has spiked.
Before the COVID-19 crisis, the food bank of the Downtown East-based charity served about 600 people a week. These days, upward of 2,000 people experiencing food insecurity are reaching out for help.
This amounts to an increase in visits of more than 200 per cent since mid-March and a weekly shortfall of roughly $30,000.
“The number of visits (to our food bank) has gone up every week consistently … The jump has been extraordinary,” Angie Peters, YSM’s president and
CEO, said last week. “We were able to squeak by in the first few weeks, but this is not in our budget.”
Determined to not scale back its services, YSM reached out to the city in late March to ask for a $330,000 grant to sustain its operations for 11 weeks. The city was unable to provide that funding, however.
Unwilling to give up, Toronto Centre Coun. Kristyn WongTam, whose ward is home to YSM’s headquarters at 306 Gerrard St. E., just west of Parliament Street, decided to approach some of her contacts to see if they can round up some corporate donors.
“Yonge Street Mission does some really difficult work. They have an incredible storm they’re trying to navigate,” the Ward 13 representative said earlier this week. “We challenged the corporate community to support this very worthy organization in downtown east.”
Basically, the idea is to get corporations to donate at least $30,000 to the Yonge Street Mission. These donors are then asked to speak with their peers and convince them to pick up the virtual baton and do the same. Capital Developments, a Toronto-based, mid-sized real estate developer, was the first to take on this challenge, contributing $30,000 to help kick off the #YSMRelay campaign last week.
“It took off like wildfire. Within 48 hours, we raised more than half of the $330,000,” said Capital Developments cofounder and managing partner
Todd Cowan during a recent interview.
Peters, of the YS M, said they’re very grateful for the help from corporate donors, but admitted the need is so great and is expected to continue and increase for “several months to come.”
“People aren’t going back to work as soon as restrictions start to loosen up,” she said. “We’ll probably need to extend our campaign or do some version of an ongoing fundraiser. … We will need sustaining partners, there’s no doubt.”
The Yonge Street Mission is Toronto’s oldest and longest running non-profit organization helping people living in poverty. The 124-year-old charity is focused on ending chronic poverty in Toronto in one generation. Visit give.ysm.ca/COVID for more information or to make a donation.