Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Miracle 2021: Toronto Mike'd #948

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Mike chats with Kiera Toffelmire about Toronto Miracle 2021, taking place on December 4, 2021.

Look at them working in the hot sun The pillory chains and the fallen wounds Working and waiting for the night to come And waiting for a And waiting for a And waiting for a miracle Hi, Kiera. Hey, Mike. How are you? Good. How are you doing?

Good. It's Friday. It's Friday. I'm in love. I think that's a Kiera song. Now, it was almost, I was checking my records. I keep these records of everything, of course, and I saw it was almost exactly one year ago, episode 752, that I had Jordan Mleinik.

I still don't like calling her Jordan because I knew her as Jordy forever. But she was on to talk about Toronto Miracle 2020. And we're doing it again this year. We're doing it again this year. Yeah. And you're right. It's almost a year to the date since we had the inaugural Toronto Miracle. This year, the event is going to be taking place on Saturday, December 4th. Okay, that's important. And I will repeat it

a dozen times during our chat here because I want to explain. I'm going to assume people listening to us right now know absolutely nothing about what we're talking about. But the most important thing as we proceed here is to know the date, December 4th. So December 4th, 2021, in case you're listening in the far off future, is the Toronto Miracle 2021. So Kiera, can you start by letting everybody know exactly what Toronto Miracle is? Absolutely. So Toronto Miracle is a grassroots, completely community-led, community-driven initiative that aims to bring together all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto together to raise 250,000 pounds of food in a single day. In a

nutshell, that's what it is. And we can sort of dive into what that looks like. Right. Now, let's like eliminate some people right off the top. So in terms of like donating food, is it going to be the Toronto borders? Like, you know, if your mayor is John Tory, then you can. Is that the way it works? Like exactly geographically? Yeah, exactly. So within Toronto city limits, it doesn't mean you can't participate. If you live outside of those Toronto city neighborhoods, you can still volunteer and you can still donate food.

And it will just look a little bit different for you in terms of how you would go about doing that. All right. So let's start with the volunteers and then we'll get back to the donors, which is a lower barrier of entry. And of course that's the, uh, the food that feeds this entire wonderful project. Okay. So if somebody listening now, FOTMs are listening and they want to be a part of this and help how, like, like, like tell me about what volunteers we need and how, uh, an FOTM can raise their hand and say, Hey, I'm here to help. Yeah. So as I was saying earlier, Mike, this is a completely volunteer run initiative and we're trying to raise 250,000 pounds of food in a single day. So we need all the volunteer support we can get. One of the main ways that you can raise your hand and step up to support this event as a

volunteer is by visiting torontomiracle.org, registering as a volunteer to collect food on the event day. So as I was saying, we're going to be hopefully collecting food in all 140 neighborhoods. So you can register to volunteer within your own neighborhood and start collecting food for a few hours and help to bring that to what is called one of our hub locations. So that's like one of the key critical volunteer opportunities. We're going to need an army to help us collect all the food, hopefully. But also leading up to the event day, which again, I'll repeat, is Saturday, December 4th, we need support spreading the word about this event.

So firing in your neighborhood, reaching out to community organizations, talking to your friends, all of the kind of promotional parts of the event we could use volunteer support for as well. Awareness is so key. You're right. Like if you don't know Toronto Miracle is happening on December 4th, not only does that mean you're not going to volunteer, but you're not going to actually put food out. It's so key. And I'm thinking of like some important FOTMs, like I'm thinking Richard Southern. And I mean, there's people, if I start thinking about, you know, who I can reach out to and see if we can get your face and your voice on Toronto's airwaves and also in print, like I'm thinking I have a David Ryder at the Toronto Star. There's a whole bunch of things just running through my head right now, but we need awareness. So if anyone out there has any influence over any influencer,

or if you're an influencer yourself, whether mainstream media or not, we need your help to spread the word. And the one-stop shopping for everything that we're going to chat about here is torontomiracle.org. I didn't care if you went away And I know you were never right All I did, I was never wrong I could never make up my mind I made it up as I went along And though I treated you like a child I'm gonna miss you for the rest of my life

All I need is a miracle, all I need is you All I need is a miracle, all I need is you. All I need is a miracle. All I need is you. And here's another mind blow to me, that there's 140 Toronto neighborhoods. If you put a gun to my head, don't do that. But if you did, I don't know how many I could name. I think I'd struggle to come up with 40 of the names. That's amazing, 140 neighborhoods in this city. I know. It really is incredible. I didn't know either

until we started mapping out the plan for Toronto Miracle. So there's, yeah, as you were saying, lots of different ways to get involved. A lot of people we want to reach out to and we want to partake. So we need all the sort of hands on deck and all the support we can get in spreading the word. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, 250,000 pounds, my brain can't even picture what that might look like. I mean, some food is light. I think that some food like bread or whatever, I'm thinking that there's some light food and then there's some dense canned goods that really increase that weight threshold here. I'm just thinking of ways to juke the stats here. But bottom line is we need non-perishable food items.

So everyone in Toronto can participate, but it's these volunteers I'm concerned with. So I guess you need to have some kind of like a community captain in each of these 140 neighborhoods. Can you be specific, like a little bit more specific in terms of the volunteers like we desperately need right now? Yeah, for sure. And thanks for bringing that up, Mike. So you can raise your hand to be what we are calling a community captain. So that is within your specific neighborhood, you can sort of be the lead for all of the volunteers who are going to be supporting you on event day to collect food.

So what the community captain role entails is really getting everyone who has raised their hand to volunteer in your neighborhood organized. It's communicating with those volunteers leading up to the event day, supporting with, again, promotion in your neighborhood, and then making sure that all the volunteers know what to do with the food once they've collected it on event day. And you would sort of be the liaison between the volunteers within your neighborhood and the organizing committee to make sure all that food is collected and distributed. I was actually on a call with FOTM Cam Gordon yesterday. That's right. We have phone calls. And actually, you know, it wasn't a phone call.

It was like a Google Hangout call or whatever. But whatever. We were chatting and he was talking to him and his daughter and his girlfriend, MF. They're volunteering. And then I heard from Lieve Fumke and Juan and they're volunteering. And I just, if I have any influence over any FOTMs listening right now, please go to torontomiracle.org and you can register as a volunteer, right? And then somebody will take it from there, right?

Yeah, exactly. So you can register as a volunteer to help collect food, to help drive food to distribution hubs, or as a community captain too. And no matter which way you register, someone will reach out to you and let you know next steps and sort of what this will look like for you. And now let's talk a little bit more about participating as a donor because there's no excuses here. Everyone who can spare non-perishable food items should go to torontomiracle.org and register as a donor, right? Like register your

intent to donate. Yeah, exactly. We try and make this as simple as possible for folks to be able to participate. So if you have the capacity, we're asking everyone to visit torontomiracle.org, register yourself as a donor, and then leave your food donations. And again, it's non-perishable food donations on your doorstep on December 4th by 10 AM. And from there, Toronto Miracle Volunteers will come collect those items. So if we're asking, you know, everyone who can to leave one non-perishable food item inside their door, of course you can leave more if you have the capacity to,

but we think we'll be able to hit our goal of raising 250,000 pounds of food in one day. I like how we ask for one non-perishable food item, but who's that person who leaves one? Like nobody, right? Like, you know, if you can give one, you can give a whole lot more. We ask for one knowing that our donors are going to step up and blow that number out of the water yeah i mean the more the merrier but again um anything that you can do uh helps so whether it's one or it's a hundred pieces of food items we are thrilled that you're able to participate um and yeah ask ask you to register today at toronto miracleiracle.org. What's that URL again? What's that website address again?

I'll tell you one more time really slowly, torontomiracle.org. We would love to see our donor base grow. It's like that monorail episode of The Simpsons. What's that called? Monorail, monorail, monorail. If you repeat it enough, it just becomes like,

we'll get the whole mob involved here. Guns that cross the street You never know who you might meet Who's in disguise Ooh, as you blow a storm There's no one there to keep you warm It's no surprise There's something in my eyes

It's a miracle It's a miracle It's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. And dreams are made up. Now I'm going to ask you some heavier questions here.

And well, firstly, though, I want to know, were you on the team? I know the answer, but I'm going to pretend I don't know. Were you on the team that organized last year's initial inaugural Toronto Miracle? I was on the team, Mike. And yeah, just to sort of give folks some context from what was achieved last year. So as you mentioned, it was the very first Toronto Miracle ever in the middle of the pandemic. And we were able through volunteer power to raise 210,000 pounds of food in one day. And sort of speaking to your earlier comment

about like, what does that look like? And what's 210,000 pounds of food look like? So it's about 53 cars stacked on top of each other so if you can imagine that or if that helps you at all that doesn't help me at all actually okay well it all to me again again some food is heavy some food is is lighter like per square meter or whatever it's but but it's nice to have a target so you know that's a nice round target 250 and you know yeah you know canada we're metric here but heck toronto miracle has gone uh imperial here we're measuring this in pounds i noticed what's that about yeah

well to your like i think what you were getting at though from, from last year, Mike, we knew that a lot, the pandemic had placed a lot of strain on the different food banks and community food programs that exist across our city. There were more and more folks accessing food and there was a huge spike in demand for food. So this event came together really quickly and we were blown away by people's generosity and willingness to step up and support our neighbors. So my bigger question I was getting to was basically, so the first one was last December. I'm guessing we learned a great deal from that experience that we can apply what we learned to this. So I think second time around, we just know like where the gaps are and maybe some things we overlooked or underestimated. We're going to be better this time. Yeah, that's the hope. We're going to need everyone's help to be better. But yeah,

we've had a little bit more of an earlier start and exactly a precedent that was set last year and to learn from. Today, as I speak to you, it's November 12. Toronto Miracle is December 4. That's not a lot of time. So it is key that if you can volunteer, you do that ASAP. It's a good thing to do if you're kids or just with your partner or whatever. This is good for your soul

because this is a completely volunteer-run initiative. Baby, I've been waiting I've been waiting day to day I didn't see the time I waited half my life away There were lots of invitations I know you sent me some But I was waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Kiera, they say it takes a village. We have some fine partners helping us with this initiative. Yeah, we do. We have some amazing community organizations based in Toronto. So Daily Bread Food Bank, Second Harvest, North York Harvest, Salvation Army, and the Scarborough Food Security Initiative are all charitable and nonprofit organizations that are going to be helping us on event day. So they're going to be functioning as drop-off locations where you can bring your food donations,

and they're going to ensure that all of the food is distributed to communities across the city that can use it. Amazing. Love it. And I mentioned a heavier question was coming. Hopefully you can speak to this, but why do we need a Toronto Miracle to feed citizens of Toronto? Why is this necessary? Yeah, well, that's a big, heavy and loaded question. But I think we know right now, like the pandemic, especially has been a hard time for everyone. But the need for increased food access continues to grow here. Rising food prices and housing costs might have made it increasingly difficult for a lot of Torontonians to be able to access foods that they want and need when they want and need it. And then, as I was mentioning earlier, just the, there's been a spike in the number of people who are accessing like community food programs. And so a lot of strain has been placed on those organizations. And so any food donations that they receive to support their operations goes a really long way. So Daily Bread Food Bank reported that visits to food banks had increased by more than 50% in the last 12 months,

with over 124,000 visits in June 2021 alone. In Second Harvest's Invisible Food Network report that was just released, they found that there are four times more charitable food providers in Canada right now than grocery stores. But not what you need When you feel so tired But you can't sleep Stuck in reverse And the tears come streaming Down your face When you lose something

you can't replace When you love someone but it goes to waste Could it be worse? It be wise Lights will guide you home And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you And it's amazing that this grassroots initiative just sort of came out of this need, and it's totally and completely run on volunteer power.

I mean, so again, here's the big asks, I guess, if I have the big three asks. The one is to go to torontomiracle.org and register your intent to donate food during the Toronto Miracle Day. That is, of course, December 4 at 10 a.m. So basically, is it as simple as if you own a home, you just leave the food on your doorstep and you just mark it that it's for Toronto Miracle. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah. We encourage folks to make

signs and make it easier for our volunteers to spot your house. But at minimum, if you can just register and put your food items on your doorstep by 10am on Saturday, December 4th. Okay, so that's for Torontonians who have a doorstep. But what do we do for the many Torontonians who either rent an apartment or live in a condo and don't have a doorstep per se? Yeah, that's a great question, Mike. So if you live in an apartment building or a condo, you can still register again at torontoamiracle.org. And just note that you're in a condo. And what we did last year and what we're going to do again this year is have sort of community spaces. So maybe you would bring your food and leave it in the lobby. And then our would come pick it up from there. Okay. So that I mentioned, there's three of

these. So we're going to count on down. That is the donation part. Cause of course we need to get to 250,000 pounds of non-perishable food and there's one day to do it. That's amazing. That is a miracle. We're going to do it. The second thing is the volunteers you need, these community captains and all the people, kind of the foot soldiers if you will you also can go to toronto miracle.org and register your desire to volunteer and someone will get in contact with you and uh bring you up to speed on everything there so that's the second one yep yeah i'm just waiting for a round of applause no there's no okay so the last and last but not least this is the one I'm going to do my best through email and DM and Instagram and some, you know, telephone.

I'm going to do what I can to help with this. But you, Kiera, you're available as a spokesperson for Toronto Miracle to talk to anybody who, I don't know, radio stations in this city. I'm going to talk to Greg Brady at 640, Kelly Catrera. We have others, many stations have FOTMs now. So we got to basically get you on the radio. We got to get you on television. Yes, that's right. Mike Apple, I'm coming for you, buddy. We got to get you in the newspapers, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun. Basically, we need to raise awareness so the average Torontonian who hasn't yet discovered the wonders of Toronto Mike will learn that Toronto Miracle 2021 is happening December 4th at 10 a.m.

Miracle 2021 is happening December 4th at 10 a.m. Yes. Yeah. As we mentioned earlier, this depends on us spreading awareness for the event. So you're ready? You're ready? You're ready? You got your you're ready for camera time and mic time.

You're ready to get out there? I don't know about that, Mike. But yeah, this event is worth all the sort of buzz it can get. I'm happy to help with that. And I'm happy to help you with media training just as soon as somebody helps me with media training. I'd be hugely appreciated

if you could help me. Give a little bit of your love to me I'll give a little bit I'll give a little bit of my love to you There's so much that we need to share So send a smile and show you care I'll give a little bit I'll give a little

bit of my life for you So give a little bit I'll give a little bit of your time to me See the man with the lonely eyes Oh take his hand, you'll be surprised Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Give a little bit Give a little bit of your love to me

I'll give a little bit, I'll give a little bit of my life for you Now's the time that we need to share It's all fine to sell We're on our way back home Oh, going home What you need, what you need to be loved Oh, yeah, we gotta see Ooh, you gotta get a feelin'

Ooh, yeah, come along too Ooh, you gotta get a feelin' Come along, come along, come along, come along Come along Cymryd y llwyth, cymryd y llwyth, cymryd y along with me, we'll sing it tonight