As forecasts predict a colder-than-normal winter, and Toronto neighbours face rising isolation and food insecurity, our doors at Yonge Street Mission will be wide open to offer needed support within our caring community.
Thanks to your partnership throughout the year, we provide not only healthy food, but also community and connection!
Over the holidays we expect to serve:
- Regular groceries for 2,679 neighbours through our Food Bank
- 7,000 freshly prepared meals for vulnerable youth through our Evergreen Centre
- 5,700 hot meals for adults through our Bridges Community Services (pictured above)
- Closer to Christmas, our Bridges team will welcome up to 350 neighbours to a special catered Christmas dinner
- On Christmas day, our Evergreen staff host a mouth-watering Christmas meal for youth without a place to spend the holidays, lovingly prepared by YSM’s Chef Marion. Instead of feeling alone, cold or hungry, guests can eat, laugh, and even sing karaoke together.
As YSM responds to Toronto neighbours’ urgent need for food, our staff then invite community members into our RISE – Respond, Invite, Support, Engage – model of supportive care, through more than 100 programs and services to help each neighbour find a pathway out of poverty.
After Sam* visited YSM’s Food Bank, he signed up for our Trauma and Transformation course, to begin working through the PTSD which had radically impacted his life. A YSM Care Manager supported Sam in setting goals, something he’d never done before. As Sam gained focus, met new people and began to help others, he felt a renewed sense of hope. For him, YSM became a place that wasn’t just about receiving something, but a place to give and receive all at once, to experience growth, caring and purpose.
Would you like to contribute to this year’s Christmas meals? You can give Christmas meals through our website.
*Name changed to protect community member’s privacy.