Corktown church’s ‘deep’ link to fund
Little Trinity’s 175th birthday will wholly benefit campers
More than a century ago, a small church on King St. E. began a collaboration with the Fresh Air Fund that has continued in one way or another to this day.
Back in 1907, under the leadership of Canon Dixon, the rector of the Little Trinity Anglican Church, the church began receiving money from the fund to send kids to camp.
“There’s a deep historical connection between Little Trinity and the Fresh Air Fund,” said assistant pastor Tyler Wigg-Stevenson. On Sunday, to celebrate the church’s 175th anniversary and its history of service to the city, it will be holding the Corktown Walk for Camp from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.
“One of the things we wanted to do was to not only to celebrate the worship of the church and the spiritual life, but also the way that our sense of what God has done for this community,” said Wigg-Stevenson.
All the proceeds from the walk will go to the Fresh Air Fund, which supports 50 residential camps and 52 day camps and gives 25,000 underprivileged kids and kids with special needs the full camp experience.
The fund was created by Joseph Atkinson, the Daily Star’s publisher, in 1901 to give underprivileged and special-needs kids a chance to escape the city heat and explore nature.
“Summer camp is a big part of the life of our youth and it’s something we value and want to support for those families that don’t have the wherewithal necessarily to offer it,” said Wigg-Stevenson.
At the time, Corktown was a working-class area with a lot of poverty, said volunteer and church-history buff Joanne Millard.
“It was very polluted, there was a lot of industry down there, the houses were not in very good condition, most of them,” she said.
“So there were a lot of people living in substandard housing.”
Through the fund, Little Trinity was able to help alleviate that.
“It was a very big recipient right at the beginning,” said Millard. “They would send (children and mothers) on a day trip out on the lake, or sometimes to Toronto Islands.”
And up until very recently, said Millard, Little Trinity was still one of the recipients of money from the fund to distribute it to underprivileged kids and send them to camp.
The walk will begin in front of the church at 425 King St. E. and will pass by historical sites like the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, which was built in 1848, and the Distillery District’s millstone from the original windmill.