Grassroots organizations are key when it comes to building a flourishing community. For any charity to exist, it needs to have financial support, and Fresh Food Weekly couldn’t have existed at all if it weren’t for the support of many local organizations, businesses and individuals in Barrie, Innisfil and their surrounding areas.
Our grassroots funders
Here's a map of all of the local funding organizations, grantors, groups, and businesses with charitable programs that donated to or awarded funds to Fresh Food Weekly, one or more times, since receiving charitable status. This map does not yet include donations made by local businesses without some sort of a charitable giving program (this will be added soon).
Our past fundraisers and awards
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Local Heroes Campaign
$3,127.50
September 2021
After reaching out to Rona’s Vice President of Global Affairs about doing a different fundraiser, he told Fresh Food Weekly about The Lowe’s Local Heroes Campaign. Each year, Lowe’s and Rona stores across Canada host a nation-wide fundraising campaign throughout the month of September to raise money in support of a local charity of their choosing. Fresh Food Weekly was selected as the September 2021 recipient for the Barrie Rona store. The purpose of this fundraiser was to raise funds for a ‘mega Christmas grocery shop’ for women who had resided at The Women & Children’s Shelter of Barrie at some point in time, while prioritizing single moms. The carrots and onions were donated by Dominion Farm Produce, a TON of desserts were donated by Don’s Bakery, and Rampage Coffee Co. donated two big boxes of individually packaged freshly ground coffee, which they shipped all the way from Saskatoon, SK. The majority of food in these ‘mega grocery shops’ was purchased from Costco. On Dec. 21st, food was picked up by volunteers and taken to Connexus Community Church, to be organized into individual orders by volunteers. Then these volunteers personally delivered this food to 15 women residing in Barrie, who signed up to receive it in advance.
Leah Dyck (left), Kaity Fotherby (centre), Jesse King (right).
Bone Broth Fundraiser
$218.50
May 26, 2022
Bone Broths were sold frozen for $9.00 a litre, on site at Thorganic Farms, as well as at the Vaughan Farmer’s Market by Thorganic Farms, as well as at the Thornton Farmer’s Market by Stone Horse Farm, as well as through the local Farm-to-Family online catalogue. All the ingredients were provided by donors. Chef: Terry Williams, Terry’s Unique Hot Sauce Butter: Terry’s Unique Hot Sauce Celery & Celery Root: Gaetano’s Green Acre Farms Onions & Carrots: Dominion Farm Produce Carrots & Potatoes: Cookstown Greens Bone Broth Flavours Sold: Pork Broth, using pig bones from Stone Horse Farm in Thornton, Ont. Beef Broth, using beef bones from Thorganic Farms in Thornton, Ont. Chicken Broth, using chicken bones from Integrated Farms in Oro Medonte, Ont.
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Charity Golf Fundraiser
$2,000.00
June 18, 2022
Adam Pauze of Pauze Innovations hosted his annual Charity Golf Tournament and chose Fresh Food Weekly as their 2022 charitable recipient. This fundraiser was in support of Fresh Food Weekly’s meal box program launch and first official meal box program delivery day, which took place four days later. CTV News Barrie also came out to do a news segment on the fundraiser, which helped the players feel a lot more like Tiger Woods, which was definitely an added value offering for players.
Rotary Club - Kempenfelt
Aug/22 & May/23
$2,000.00
Leah Dyck attended one of the meetings for the Rotary Club of Barrie - Kempenfelt as the guest speaker and spoke about the food insecurity crisis in Barrie, Ont.
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Jill Tibbenham (left), and Leah Dyck (right).
School Snacks Drive
August 2022
$1,640.69
Fresh Food Weekly is hosting a School Snacks Food Drive for families with children in elementary school who aren't able to afford food. Throughout the month of August 2022, Fresh Food Weekly hosted a ‘School Snacks Drive’ for low-income families with school-aged children in kindergarten to grade eight, in Barrie, Ont. (we expanded into Innisfil in January 2023), and accepted school snack donations. We asked donors for snacks that didn't need to be refrigerated as well, or anything with peanuts. This was an additional delivery day not included in our regular meal box program. Our volunteer drivers delivered these school snack bags to recipients on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022.
Some of the school snacks included in our deliveries.
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Guys That Give
September 8, 2022
$10K
Guys That Give is a group of local men who come together and donate $100 each, four times a year to pool this money, and vote for a local charity or nonprofit to give it to. At the time of Fresh Food Weekly’s award, there were 100 men in the group, and so the award amount was $10,000.00. Now the group has grown and quarterly awards exceed this amount! The only way to be considered for this funding, though, is to be nominated by a member in the group. Furthermore, nominees then come and compete against two other nominees by pitching to the men for five minutes, making sure to explain who you are and what you would do with the money if it was awarded. Scott Cooper nominated Fresh Food Weekly and on September 8th, Fresh Food Weekly presented, and competed against: 1) Steve Osmak, the President of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Barrie & District, and 2) Alex Nuttall, who wasn’t yet the Mayor of Barrie at the time (but everyone knew he was about to become the city’s next Mayor) and has since become the Mayor of Barrie. Alex was presenting for Pie Education, a local non-profit who raises funds for and delivers thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to low-income families with school-aged children each year in Simcoe County. Near the end of Alex’s five minutes, he encouraged the group of men in the room to vote for Fresh Food Weekly. Fresh Food Weekly was presented with $10,000 on October 24, 2022.
Dave Carr (left), Leah Dyck (centre), Scott Cooper (right).
Signed Wendel Clark Alumni Whiskey Raffle Draw
$540.00
November 13, 2022 to December 17, 2022
Tickets to enter the raffle draw fundraiser were $45 each, which was the price of one meal box at the time. The goal of this fundraiser was to encourage members in the community to sponsor a low-income family with one monthly meal box delivery. Prize: A Signed Wendel Clark Signed Alumni Whisky Prize Pack which included a signed, limited-time J.P. Wiser’s Wendel Clark Alumni Whiskey Edition bottle, a Toronto Maple Leafs whiskey glass with an etched Wendel Clark signature, and a ‘Wendel My Life in Hockey’ book.
Ghost Riders Club of Lisle
$500.00
November 26, 2022
Each year, this group of motorcyclists does a ‘Motorcycle Drive’ to raise money in support of a local charity. This money was used to pay for 10 Christmas meal boxes that went out the following month.
Leah Dyck speaking to the Rotary Club of Innisfil.
100 Men Who Give A Damn - Innisfil
$2,700.00
December 1, 2022
Fresh Food Weekly was one of three charities who came to pitch their charity to a group of men. Each charity was given five minutes to explain why their charity should be selected for this round of funding and afterwards, the charity representatives would leave the room for the men to vote. The winning charity receives 80 percent of the prize money and the other two charities each receive 10 percent. The two charities that Fresh Food Weekly competed against were Wounded Warriors Canada and Mother Daughter Empower. These winnings helped Fresh Food Weekly expand into Innisfil the following month. Fresh Food Weekly was nominated by Michael Tough, who attended a presentation by Leah Dyck gave to the Rotary Club of Innisfil.
Michael Tough (left), Leah Dyck (centre), Brian Sametz (right).
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Rotary Club - Huronia
$3,000.00
2022 & 2023
Leah Dyck attended one of the meetings for the Rotary Club of Barrie - Huronia as the guest speaker and spoke about the food insecurity crisis in Barrie, Ont.
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Easter 2023 Campaign
The months of January, February and March are always months that experience a sharp decline in donations, and with Easter taking place at the end of March or the beginning of April, fundraising initiatives always need to be thought out well in advance. For Easter 2023, Fresh Food Weekly’s Easter campaign included the following outreach initiatives:
‘Kool to Care’ Radio Promotions
March 2023
Rock 95 and Kool FM created two radio advertisements to promote Fresh Food Weekly’s Easter meal boxes. Each advertisement was aired on their corresponding station between Mar. 13th to 17th, 2023 and Mar. 27th to the 31st, 2023, thanks to Kool FM’s 'Kool to Care' charity spot, and Rock 95’s 'Our Community Rocks' charity spot.
100 Women Who Care - South Simcoe
$1,100.00
February 23, 2023
The 100 Women Who Care - South Simcoe group is a relatively newer group of local women who meet quarterly to donate $100 each meeting, and then pool their funds to vote on three local charities to donate their funds to. The winning charity receives 80 percent of the donations and the other two charities receive 10 percent of the donations. The three competing charities can only be nominated by members and are required to pitch their charity to the members with a time limit of five minutes each, explaining what the charity is all about and what their funds would do if awarded. Then they have an additional five minutes for a question and answer period. Fresh Food Weekly competed against Crohn’s and Colitis Canada and Diabetes Canada and won the 80 percent take-home donations.
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Amy Simpson (left), and Ashleigh Hrynyk (right) are the Founders of the 100 Women Who Care group and here, they’re picking up and delivering 100L of Kawartha Dairy’s 10% half and half cream, 200 pounds of organic rainbow carrots from Cookstown Greens and six wheels of Mild Gouda cheese from Continental Specialties & Imports.
Georgian College Community Sponsorship
$1,000.00
March 6, 2023
Fresh Food Weekly applied for Georgian College’s local community sponsorship fund seeking a sponsorship for our upcoming Easter meal boxes and was approved.
Kiwanis Club of Barrie
March 13, 2023
$2,000.00
Fresh Food Weekly was granted this money in support of our Easter meal boxes that went out on April 5, 2023.
Signed John Tavares Jersey Raffle Draw
$2,300.00
June 8, 2023 (first day of the last round of the 2023 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs)
Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) donated a signed John Tavares jersey to Fresh Food Weekly to use in a fundraiser. The raffle ran for 51 days and 99 people entered and purchases a total of 327 tickets. Tickets were $10 for one or $20 for three. The case was first displayed at Barrie Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram on Dunlop Street, west in Barrie. It was then displayed at local StarBuds stores for a week, rotating through their three locations in Barrie. Volunteers also displayed the jersey outside of local retailers to sell tickets to people walking by. Other local businesses displayed raffle draw signage throughout the duration of the fundraiser, which included a QR code for people to use to enter the draw. These businesses included Connect Hair Studio, Continental Specialties & Imports, Slickers Salon, Sunrise Records, Fox's Bakery and Deli, Zehrs, Sandbox Centre, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Rinaldi Salon & Spa. Prize: Signed John Tavares reverse retro style from 2023, in a display case (display case from Wayfair). Winner: Steve Webber, long-time volunteer.
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May Court Club of Barrie
$4,800.00
May 4, 2023
The May Court Club of Barrie is a group of local women who raise funds throughout the year and then disburse these funds among local charities of their choosing, who apply for the funds in advance. Charity applicants under consideration for funds are then interviewed by 10 May Court Club Board Members via Zoom. In 2023, the club awarded $40,000 to various charities in the community, and Fresh Food Weekly was one of those recipient charities. Alex Nuttall was the Mayor of Barrie by this point, and was gave a speech at the award presentation as well.
Father’s Day Prize Pack Raffle Draw
$1,110.00
June 8, 2023
The Father's Day prize pack raffle draw fundraiser ran for 23 days and was only offered to people who lived in Barrie, or who were willing to meeting at a pickup location within 50km of Barrie. A total of 36 people entered this raffle contest, and purchased a total of 163 tickets. Tickets sold at one for $10.00 or three for $20.00. Prize Pack Items: The prize pack has a retail value of $1,150 and included some of dad's favourite gadgets that were all donated by local businesses who wanted to support the Fresh Food Weekly program: 1. Napoleon 10,500 BTU Portable Propane Gas Grill, donated by Napoleon. 2. Two Toronto Blue Jays Tickets for a June 2023 game of the winner’s choice. The tickets were in section 125, row 16, right behind the Toronto Blue Jay's dugout. 3. DeWalt Pro Backpack on Wheels 4. 20V MAX Cordless Pruner Kit: BLACK+DECKER 20V MAX* cordless pruner kit, equipped with a 1.5Ah battery. 5. MasterCraft Universal Socket Set, 174-pcs 6. $100 Gift Certificate to Thorganic Farms 7. Flying Monkeys Prize Pack, donated by Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery: Six-pack of beer (four Raving Loops of Computer Music Amber Lager and two Juicy Ass American IPA), a Flying Monkeys T-shirt, coasters and a branded lanyard.
Ripple of Kindness
+$32K
September 2023
On Aug. 16th, 2023, the Ripple of Kindness (ROK) - Founding Chapter - Barrie, announced they had selected Fresh Food Weekly as the charitable recipient for their September 2023 round of funding. Ripple of Kindness (ROK) - Barrie is the founding ROK Chapter, comprised of local women making a huge difference in Barrie and the surrounding communities. This group raises funds for local charities of their choice, four times a year. Each member donates $100, four times a year, and votes on a local charities that have been nominated by members within their group, and the winning charity receives 100 percent of the donations. For the September 2023 round, 22 charities were nominated to be voted for, and Fresh Food Weekly received 60 percent of the votes.
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RBC Giving Foundation
2023, Periodically
$2,710.26
RBC’s Corporate National Employee Giving Program allows RBC Employees to give back to the community as a result of their employee-matching program. Through this program, RBC donates money [to local registered charities selected by individual employees] for time spent volunteering in the community. Between the two Barrie branches at 99 Mapleview Dr., W and 405 Bayfield St., at least 15 RBC staff volunteered for Fresh Food Weekly at least once, while around eight volunteered regularly and at least two volunteering every single delivery day, in some capacity. The majority of RBC staff volunteers were delivery drivers, although some would also help out with picking up food and packing. RBC’s main Fresh Food Weekly volunteer was Julia Reinhard, and she was one our of best packers! She also volunteered as a Financial Volunteer for our 2023 Christmas meal boxes, as we processed +1,000 applications in December 2023.
Leah Dyck (left), Jeremy Ridley (right).
Thanksgiving 2023 Campaign
Fresh Food Weekly had just received a substantial donation from ROK and this was used specifically for current recipients who were on the on-going program. For holiday meal boxes (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas), we always wanted to make sure we raised extra funds so we could give out even more holiday meal boxes. Additionally, finding discounts on turkeys had become a lot more challenging in 2023, compared to 2022.
2023 Fall Auction
September 11, 2023
$1,014.00
Andreea Bucur is one of Fresh Food Weekly’s main volunteers and she planned, organized and hosted Fresh Food Weekly’s inaugural 2023 Fall Auction. A total of 36 items were auctioned to a total of 22 bidders.
Apple Pie Fundraiser
October 2, 2023
$300.00
Members of the community could place pre-orders for frozen, homemade 9-inch apple pies made with locally-grown apples donated by Four Wheel Farm in Glen Huron, Ont. We delivered to customers at home who lived in Barrie or Innisfil. Pies were also available for pickup the day earlier.
Harvest Dinner & Auction Fundraiser
$4,002.00
September 30, 2023
Christ Church - St. Jude's Anglican Church in Thornton hosted their annual Harvest Dinner and Auction fundraiser, and selected Fresh Food Weekly as their 2023 charitable recipient. The congregation decided they wanted to support local food security, and the lead organizer of this event was Cherrie Banting-Wrobel. Fresh Food Weekly used this money to help pay for the turkeys in the Thanksgiving Dinner Meal Boxes. The Harvest Dinner and auction raised just over the exact amount needed to cover our 2023 Thanksgiving turkeys, which were purchased from Farm Boy that year.
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Reverend Bill Welch (far left), Terry Dowdall (second to the left), Cherrie Banting-Wrobel (second to the right), Leah Dyck (far right).
In attendance of this Harvest Dinner were many of the Town of Innisfil’s city councillors, as well as another political guest, Terry Dowdall MP, a Canadian politician who was elected to represent the riding of Simcoe-Grey in the House of Common of Canada in the 2019 Canadian federal election. He was also the former Mayor of Essa (which was where the physical location of Fresh Food Weekly was located). Terry took some time to chat with Leah about Fresh Food Weekly. In this photo, Reverend Bill Welch and Terry Dowdall were just talking about how they used to play hockey together in Cambridge, Ontario.
Innisfil Community Foundation
$4,835.07
June & September, 2023
Fresh Food Weekly submitted two grants to The Innisfil Community Foundation in 2023. The first one was for funds for the largest chest freezer at Best Buy, plus some additional funds for operating costs. The second one was for another chest freezer from Best Buy (the exact same as the first one).
Christmas 2023 Campaign
The theme of Fresh Food Weekly’s 2023 Christmas campaign was really focused on ‘Giving the Gift of Giving’. We promoted the sale of printed Christmas cards with personalized voice notes from program recipients as a way to give donors an in-person experience with the program while maintaining the privacy of program recipients.
Gift of Giving Christmas Card Fundraiser
$1,980.00
November 23 to December 10, 2023
Fresh Food Weekly created the opportunity for members in the community to “give the gift of giving” by sponsoring low-income families in crisis with a turkey dinner meal box on Christmas Eve and receiving the receipt in the form of a thoughtful Christmas card and voice note, for the purpose of giving it as a Christmas present for friends and loved ones. Donors could order a Christmas card for $60.00 each through the Fresh Food Weekly website. A Christmas card would sponsor one low-income family in Barrie or Innisfil, and included a QR code for a personalized voice from a different program recipient. Cards were mailed to donors in early December, along with a printed copy of their charitable tax receipt. We ended up selling a total of 33 Christmas cards for Christmas 2023.
This was the example card used in the marketing materials for the campaign, and if you take a picture of the QR code with your camera and visit the landing page, you’ll be able to listen to this voice note (Leah’s daughter, Niah, was the actor in this example voice note). This link will expire in December 2024 unless we renew our account (and we might by then).
Pair of Toronto Maple Leafs' Tickets Raffle Draw
$725.00
December 10, 2023
Prize: Pair of Toronto Maple Leafs’ Tickets for a home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, Dec. 14th, 2023vat 7:00 PM EST (Section 115, row 17, seats 11-12). Details: This Pair of Leafs’ Tickets Raffle Draw Fundraiser had 37 entrants who purchased a combined total of 339 tickets. Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment donated a pair of Leafs' tickets for the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. Tickets sold for: one for $5.00, three for $10.00, or 10 tickets for $20.00. Winner: Mary-Anne Felice-Frith, one of the Co-Founders of the ROK Barrie Chapter.
Real Deal Black Friday Fundraiser
$7,660.00
Friday, November 24, 2023 (Black Friday 2023)
Black Friday fundraising campaigns are about Canadian communities taking care of each other and when charities promote their cause on Black Friday, they’re trying to get people to take a moment and consider the needs of the less fortunate while their shopping for their Black Friday deals. So Fresh Food Weekly promoted the ‘Gift of Giving’ campaign on Facebook and sold 11 ‘Gift of Giving’ Christmas Cards for $60.00 each. The majority of the funds raised on this day came from one donation, who also donated $5,000.00 to Fresh Food Weekly for Christmas 2022.
GivingTuesday 2023
Tuesday, November 28th, 2023
$1,550.00
Fresh Food Weekly joined the CanadaHelps’ global GivingTuesday campaign on this day of Tuesday, November 28th, 2023, and asked to have it featured on their high-traffic GivingTuesday marketing page.
GatewayGIVES ‘12 Days of Giving Campaign’
$2,000.00
December 6, 2023
Gateway Casinos has a corporate giving and community engagement program called GatewayGIVES, which involves company employees nominating and voting on 12 local organizations to share a $24,000 donation as part of their ‘12 Days of Giving Campaign’. Fresh Food Weekly was nominated and selected as one of the 12 local charitable recipients to receive Gateway Casino Innisfil’s 2023 Christmas donation.
Connexus Community Church
$3,000.00
December 18, 2023
Leah Dyck has been a member of Connexus Community Church for years, having attended services way back when it was located on the 7th line of Oro Medonte and when it used to be called Trinity Presbyterian. This is one of the reasons why Leah chose Connexus Community Church for the location of Fresh Food Weekly’s very first fresh food ‘fulfillment location’.
