April 6, 2020
Dear Ward 24 Neighbours,
The Toronto Public Library has partnered with the North York Harvest, Daily Bread Food Bank and Second Harvest to set up food bank distribution from library branches across the city to provide alternate service locations for existing food banks that are now closed. The City’s Chief Librarian Vickery Bowles made a call out for additional volunteers last week because requests increase almost daily for Toronto Public Library’s food bank support. Within a few short hours of making the call for more volunteers, over 50 staff had responded.
Nine food banks are open or are scheduled to open at Toronto Public Library locations:• The first one opened on March 25 in partnership with North York Food Harvest at our Albion branch. • Eight more locations (Agincourt, Cedarbrae, Eatonville, Kennedy/Eglinton, Steeles and Taylor) are operational or near operational in partnership with Daily Bread, and two more (Don Mills and Jane Sheppard) with North York Harvest.• Toronto Public Library’s book delivery and sorting hub on Ellesmere Road has also been transformed for food bank support, with physical distancing embedded in the design. There were 27 skids of food received last week, and library staff have been sorting the food into hampers for delivery to the library branch food bank locations. This activity is being expanded to include sorting of food for the Red Cross allowing them to deliver food directly to people in their homes.
Here is a link to the Global TV interview that took place at Ellesmere with Neil Hetherington, Head of the Daily Bread Food Bank:
https://twitter.com/JennValentyne/status/1246048298479366144?s=20
I want to thank everyone with the Toronto Public Library who is involved in this!
All my Best,
Paul