Some well-known Torontonians are about to get a taste of what life is like for Barbara Kennedy, a grandmother suffering from liver cancer who says she’d starve to death if it weren’t for the food bank.
Kennedy, 50, receives social assistance and regularly visits The Stop Community Food Centre at Davenport and Symington for help.
Standing outside The Stop Tuesday, Kennedy told CityNews.ca she often feels embarrassed she can’t afford to offer her kids and grandchildren a meal when they come to visit.
“I think every person has the right to die with dignity and enjoy life with your children and your grandchildren. But to live like this, to starve to death, is pathetic,” she said.
The Stop Community Food Centre launched the second phase of its “Do the Math” campaign Tuesday, which aims to raise awareness about poverty and hunger in the city. A group of 10 prominent Torontonians (see full list below), including author and activist Naomi Klein, city councillor Joe Mihevc and his family, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. David McKeown and former Alliance Atlantis CEO Michael MacMillan, received food hampers and will have to make them last as long as possible.
The participants are also being urged to eat at least two meals at a drop-in and they must arrive on foot, by bike or by TTC.
“They’re getting a tasteless taste in their mouth of what it’s like to try and make up what you get out of a food hamper. Good luck,” Kennedy said.
A typical hamper contains about $25 worth of food and is meant to last three days. The Stop says many of its visitors are forced to make that modest supplement stretch out for a week by eating one meal per day.
“We have two cities. One part of the city is well-fed and everything is fine and the other half … just aren’t getting enough to basically sustain themselves on a daily basis and these two cities are not talking to each other,” Mihevc said.
Klein echoed that sentiment.
“We live in a city of tremendous disparity. I don’t live far from here but I live in a different world,” she said. “There aren’t many points of intersection between those two cities so we need to create them.”
Nick Saul, the Stop’s executive director, said the goal of this campaign isn’t to criticize food banks, but to highlight the lack of political will on social assistance issues.
“Food charity is not the answer to the crisis … that so many low income Ontarians are facing at this moment,” he said.
“A lot of politicians will say dealing with social assistance is a vote detractor because they don’t pay a political price for ignoring it. We need to create enough momentum around this issue that there is a political price.”