The People’s Pantry: Solidarity Not Charity—Showing Up for Community
People who receive social supports and provisions do so because we live in a white heteropatriarchy capitalist society conditioned by settler colonialism, which, by design, gives more to some people and less to others. People are not ‘less fortunate’ - they are systematically oppressed and disenfranchised. Solidarity models recognize this and treat volunteerism and donating as ethical responsibilities of those who are unfairly, systematically, given more resources and power. Solidarity is about investing in our common humanity and existence and operating under the belief that we should show up for one another because it is just the right thing to do. Solidarity is about radical love, while charity is about repacking inequality as altruism. We believe in the former, not the latter. You don’t get to determine the conditions of solidarity work, the community does.
– Jade Crimson Rose Da Costa,
Cofounder of The People’s Pantry
Born in the early stages of COVID-19, The People's Pantry (TPP) is a women, queer, and trans* Black/People of Colour led, volunteer-run, grassroots initiative. Each week they deliver home cooked meals and grocery bundles to food insecure families living in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area—100% free of charge, no questions asked, no fixed address required.
As of June 2021, the group has cooked 15,877 meals and has packed 2,584 grocery bundles for particularly hard-hit communities, including QTBIPOC, single parents, sex workers, precariously housed persons, those with medical conditions or disabilities, newly-arrived immigrants, and the elderly.
The People’s Pantry practices solidarity not charity, rooted in the fact that traditional charity systems are hierarchical, placing people either into the category of “the altruistic citizen” or “the less fortunate.” However, when you approach community organizing from the point of view of solidarity, as TPP does, volunteers are guided by the overarching belief that “giving back” is a social and ethical responsibility, as opposed to a luxury or an “additional” act of kindness and charity.
It was through Toronto’s biggest “Caremongering” Facebook group and neighborhood networks that the founders of TPP connected, realizing they were doing similar work and could pool resources to help more people. Today, more than a year later, community requests remain high and despite having 500 volunteers in their roster, recruitment is ongoing.
Logistics volunteers are the most in need—community members who can coordinate meal and grocery deliveries. But there are also roles for volunteer chefs, who prepare hundreds of meals on a weekly basis, customizing each based on each household, preferences, and dietary restrictions. For seamless delivery, volunteers then complete a non-contact drop-off in the community.
