A bit about us

We are The People's Pantry, and this is our story.

Randomly selected image of volunteers and/or meals

Mutual Aid

The People’s Pantry was founded by mostly Black and Brown queer, trans, and feminist graduate students and community organizers in Toronto/the GTA. We started with a single Facebook post to CareMongeringTO, offering free homecooked meals to Torontonians in need following the COVID-19 pandemic, and quickly grew from there.

From a small beginning of 6 people, we've now had hundreds of volunteers across Southern Ontario work to support our mutual aid project. To date, we've delivered tens of thousands of meals and grocery care packages to food-insecure families across Toronto, the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area, and Tri-Cities-Guelph.

Our mission

We believe that food justice is social justice.

We provide food free of charge, no questions asked, no fixed address required, because everyone deserves access to high quality, culturally appropriate, and nutritional food.

We focus on particularly hard-hit communities, including QT/BIPOC, single parents, sex workers, precariously housed persons, the immune compromised, disabled folx, immigrants, refugees, and the elderly.

Illustration of three people.
1

Someone asks for support

Every Monday, we open our grocery and meal form for non-Toronto requests, where those in need can request meals and groceries for themselves and their families by the day's end. When we have the funding, we also open our grocery form for Toronto on a periodic basis, where food insecure people in the city can request groceries from FoodShare Toronto.

2

Volunteers prepare meals and grocery packages

Our community of volunteer chefs and grocers prepare homecooked meals, buy groceries, and contribute baked goods to feed and support those in need and to meet their dietary needs. For Toronto grocery deliveries, our dedicated team of logistic volunteers coordinate deliveries with FoodShare Toronto to meet requests.

3

Meals & Bundles are delivered

Afterwards, our delivery volunteers, many of whom were also the ones to prepare and buy the meals and groceries, deliver everything directly to those in need, in a safe, secure, and accessible manner, with FoodShare delivering all grocery requests for Toronto in an equally safe and accessible way.

Testimonial from Crystal: The work at TPP is centred on showing solidarity with our community and combatting food insecurity, a concern that has become even more pressing with the ongoing pandemic. Please consider donating, or volunteering with one of our teams to support the Pantry and join our mission!

“If someone asks for food, it’s because they need it.”

Yann Gracia, Co-Founder