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When a Scarborough church food bank was nearly forced shut down because of renovations, the priest took matters into her own hands and moved it to a new location: her garage.
Rev. Gerlyn Henry said when renovations started at Church of the Holy Wisdom, she thought of the food bank’s clients and what its closure would mean for them.
“Food banks used to be an emergency service and now it’s an essential lifeline,” said Henry. Most clients, she said, are community members.
Most clients of the food bank are community members, Henry said, and she has individual relationships with many. If the food bank were to close, she would worry for them, she said.
“I’d be wondering, ‘Did you eat today?’’” she told CBC Toronto.
After talking to her spouse and other residents of the church’s rectory house, Henry said she emptied the shelves in her garage at the back of the church’s property to ready a space where the food bank could operate.
For about six months, the food bank has been running out of the makeshift location. During its three-hour pop-up service on Tuesday evenings, metal shelves filled with canned food, dried pasta and loaves of bread line the perimeter of Henry’s garage.
With a team of volunteers at the helm, the food bank continues to serve about 300 people a week, Henry said.
Linda Luciani is one of those volunteers. She said it was a priority for the food bank to stay close to its original location, as most people who access the service get there by foot.
A private chef is cooking up gourmet dishes for clients at the Fort York Food Bank using ingredients that would normally go to waste.
“Had we changed to a different location altogether or even shut down, then they wouldn’t have that opportunity anymore,” Luciani said. “These people mean so much to us that it was important that we find a way to keep the process going.”
Henry’s home fit the bill. But Henry said her neighbours on the street needed some convincing as it’s a dead-end, residential street.
A neighbourhood resource
Henry said it’s an ongoing conversation.
She said she explained to her neighbours that most people coming to the food bank live in the community. “So these are your neighbours. These are people you see on the street,” she said.
Suman Roy, the CEO and founder of the community food security network, Feed Scarborough, said neighbourhood food banks ultimately help communities thrive by providing a supportive resource.
“That is taking them one step away from a life of crime or a life of destruction,” he told CBC Toronto. “Having a food bank in the neighbourhood is not a bad thing, it’s to make sure that the neighbours are served.”
Roy said with high demand and little income, many food banks face similar struggles to the one at Church of the Holy Wisdom. He said finding operating spaces is often difficult because operation costs can be expensive for non-profits to pay.
The church food bank moving to Henry’s garage is just one example, he said.
“I think this is the real story of what’s happening with the whole system of food banks … Normally the food bank operators on the ground are left to fend for themselves,” said Roy.
Henry said the renovations at the church are expected to wrap up summer 2026 at, which point the food bank will return to the building.
