Founded in 1998, this group of about 15 people from 10 faith communities in the Beach works together to make a difference in our community. Efforts have included a teen drop-in, a teen dance, provision of lunch for a Habitat for Humanity build, support for the Grace Pascoe Care Centre (our local food and clothing bank). Currently BIOC hosts a Monday to Friday lunch program rotating through six of our faith community sites to address food insecurity and/or the need to socialize among people living in the greater Beach community.

TBC is a tripartite partnership of St. Aidan’s, Beach United and the Community specifically created to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015. As noted above, TBC has welcomed two families and a young woman to Canada. Following the one year of legal sponsorship, the group retains contact with the families and the individual to assist them in specific aspects of their adaptation to Canada. In May 2023 TBC also agreed to host a couple fleeing the war in Ukraine. And, on January 30, 2024 received the five member of the young woman’s family to Canada. The family is now living in a 3-bedroom apartment in North York, learning English and volunteering with bothe BIOC lunches and OOTC meals. 

While most of refugees come to Canada under the Blended Visa Office-Referred (BVOR) arrangements whereby the Government of Canada shares 50% of most of the first year of settlement costs, the five family members coming in 2022 or 2023 do not have BVOR support and the committee will have to raise an additional $25,000.

St. Aidan's and six other faith communities in east Toronto work together to sponsor and welcome refugees to Canada. In 25 years, EERC has undertaken 20 sponsorships, totally 57 people. A few have been private sponsorships but most are through the cost sharing Blended Visa Office Referral program.

This year the committee has agreed to sponsor a family under the BVOR program or an Afghan family of 5 related to a previously sponsored family whichever is accepted first by Canada or possibly both if a BVOR family can arrive first. As at December 2021, the Afghan family may be accepted by the USA and then possibly be able to come to Canada to reunite with family. Additional sponsorship funding will be needed.

For a full description of EERC’s work and how you might help, please refer to our attached brochure or contact Sue Stuart via the church office.

Beginning in 2005, St. Aidan’s started hosting people experiencing homelessness in the colder months in Memorial Hall. The church community provided meals, entertainment and sleeping space, initially for 12 people and growing to 30 people overnight on Monday nights. In addition to feeding the overnight guests, we provided meals for an additional 55 people in the community who face food insecurity. When St. Aidan’s sold Memorial Hall, OOTC moved to Beach United on Wineva Avenue.

The overnight program closed in early March, 2020, due to Covid-19. In the Fall of 2020, volunteers began taking hot meals to encampments in Moss Park, Trinity-Bellwood’s, Alexandria parks and Allan Gardens. By the end of the program in April 2021 we were delivering more than 100 meals on Saturday afternoons.

With the city effectively closing overnight shelter programs, by changing its funding for support staff, St. Aidan’s began providing evening meals on Mondays starting in January, 2023 with the numbers growing steadily throughout the months of operation.

The supper program will begins Monday Nov. 4, 2024 and operates until the last Monday of April, 2025 with doors opening at 5 PM and food served at 5:30. Volunteers are welcome. For more information on how to volunteer please contact Deacon Michael Van Dusen.

Restorative Justice Housing Ontario (RJHO) provides accommodation for people coming from prison who have no family or friends to live with on their release. Stable housing is highly correlated with a reduction of recidivism but an estimated thirty percent of people coming from prison (roughly 3,000 a year) into Metro Toronto have no place to go.

RJHO provides rent-geared-to-income for former inmates who wish to live in a community setting… sharing responsibilities for the maintenance of the residence, meeting with other residents for a common weekly meal, doing volunteer work in the community such as working at Daily Bread Food Bank or clearing snow from neighbours walkways. In addition they have to agree to a code of conduct that includes no drugs or alcohol on site, participation in community activities and respect for others in the home.

Volunteers support reintegration into the community in a variety of ways such as showing the residents how to use the transit system, helping them open a bank account, obtaining identification, or going to medical appointments with them or for bike rides, among other ways. RJHOs welcomes people with special skills, such as web management, cooking, fund-raising, or musical talent either as trained volunteers or partners on specific projects or events. Covid restrictions have hindered many volunteer and community contacts but as the restrictions lift, hopefully there will be more opportunities for people to see the program in action.

As of late 2021 there are three residences for men with space for a total of 15 residents. Funding has been received for a women’s residence and suitable locations are being sought and a job description for a coordinator of women’s residences is being developed.

Christmas Lunch has been a fixture of St. Aidan’s for over 25 years. Quigley’s pub, then on the corner of Beech and Queen, had hosted a lunch for its patrons for years. By the early 1990s it had become so popular that Quigley’s needed more space and support and asked St. Aidan’s if it could use Memorial Hall …and could people from St. Aidan’s help set up and serve the guests. The answer was an emphatic yes.

Over the years, people from St. Aidan’s became increasingly involved in the planning, preparation, funding, hosting and clean-up. When Quigley’s went out of business in. the early 2000s, St. Aidan’s took over, with the support of some of the former Quigley’s staff. When St. Aidan’s sold Memorial Hall, the lunch moved to Beach United for 2019. When Covid hit, St. Aidan’s cooked and packaged individual servings of over 100 meals at St. Nicholas, on Kingston Road and sent them in thermal bags to All Saints via a fleet of volunteers who delivered 18 meals, every 10 minutes for more than an hour. In 2021 All Saints moved its Christmas lunch to a date that could not accommodated so, instead, St. Aidan’s agreed to provide lunch for the residents of Restorative Justice Housing Ontario (see above) who have nowhere to go on Christmas Day. It is a smaller group, about 12-15 people, but nonetheless a meaningful sharing of talent and joy.

Volunteers help with food preparation, cooking, baking, delivery and hosting on Christmas Day.

The Toronto Urban Native Ministry serves First Nations peoples who live and work in Toronto. Working out of an office at Church of the Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto and in the community, it supports both traditional Indigenous spiritualities as well as Christian spiritual practices, showing that they can walk together in harmony. Founded in 1996, TUNM interacts with more than 8,000 lives each year. It reaches out to Indigenous people on the street, in hospitals, in jails, shelters and hostels, providing counseling, ceremony, spiritual care and referrals to community services. As part of St. Aidan’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, we voted as a parish to support this ministry with a financial commitment.