#SenecaProud

Pat Perdue (00:00):

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to season five of the Seneca Proud Podcast. So much changed, and now we're post pandemic. Are we though? Kind of maybe <laugh>? What's absolutely true is that the last few years have seen dramatic changes at Seneca College as well. The massive scope of the Au Large Project, which has been underway for a few years now, has been transforming Seneca into a college that embraces the highest standards of equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as sustainability and flexibility. And this entire initiative is to ensure Seneca College is ready for the demands of the future. And with the popularity of AI and other new technologies, the future is becoming the present really quickly. And Senecans are leading the way in this brave new world. Which brings us to season five. In this season, like all of our seasons, we have some amazing guests who are putting their Seneca one skills to work and are making a real splash in their career and in the world. Our guests join the pod to talk about their careers today, their experiences at Seneca and their future in this brave new kind of post pandemic. Yay. Everything's normal now, <laugh> kind of world. So stick around because the next episode of Seneca Proud starts now.

And welcome back to the Seneca Proud Podcast. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm super glad you are here. So I have a question for you, <laugh>, the question that I'm gonna ask, and I'm also gonna ask you this question at the end of the show. Okay, so let's say you're riding the bus and who gets on, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and sits across from you <laugh>, what would you talk to him about? What topic would you choose? Or would you be ready with a topic? And I mentioned that because if you had asked me that question a few weeks ago, I truthfully would not have been able to answer it. But that was before I had my conversation with our next guest, and now I would definitely know what to talk about and perhaps what's more important I know what more I can do, just in case that random opportunity on the 24 Southbound <laugh> doesn't happen.

And all because of a conversation that I'm thrilled to be able to share with you today. Our guest is Seneca College graduate and CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank, Neil Heatherington. In case you're not aware, the Daily Bread Food Bank is one of Canada's largest food banks supporting over 200 food programs serving more than 200,000 client visits per month. The Daily Bread is a national leader in research that examines the causes and impact of food insecurity, and food insecurity is a real problem in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, nearly 15% of all Canadian households reported some of food insecurity in 2021. Our guest, Neil Heatherington, has spent much of his life around solving for income disparity and currently focusing on how to alleviate food insecurity in the short term, and also how to encourage government policies that will be solutions for the long term.

So let me tell you about our guest, Neil Heatherington, and then we'll get to the interview. As I mentioned, Neil is the CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread food Bank. Previously, he was the CEO of Habitat for Humanity, Toronto and New York City for 16 years. He holds degrees or certificates from Huron University, Seneca College, Harvard Business School, and the University of Virginia Darden Business School. And his MBA is from University of Western Ontario, Ivy Business School. Neil was named one of Canada's Top 40 under 40 in 2005. He has received the Distinguished Alumni of the Year awards from each of Huron University, Royal St. George's College, Western University, and Seneca College. He was awarded Queen Elizabeth's Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals in 2002 and 2012. In 2018, he was awarded the Premier's award for Outstanding Ontario College graduates for Excellence in Business.

In our conversation, we talk about the Daily Bread Food Bank, of course, and we also talk about how anyone can get involved in ending food insecurity. You're going to love this interview. We start with Neil walking us through a day in the life of the Daily Bread Food Bank. It's quite a day, <laugh>. Okay, here's my conversation with Seneca grad CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank, Neil Heatherington.

 

Neil Heatherington (04:43):

Sure. Well, it starts off early in the morning. We have a, a really wonderful and dedicated team in our operations who arrive early, and they, they take the food that has been packed the previous day in our freezer, in our fridge, and on the shelves, and it's all put onto skids and truck drivers come in and they load up the trucks in reverse order, and they drop it off at, at Food Banks across the, across the city. They're responding to a need that is absolutely deplorable in what's going on. You know, before the pandemic we're rec we're recording this day before March of 2023, and, and in March of 2019, we saw 70,000 client visits. All right, so fast forward to today, March of 2023 will be 270,000 client visits,  from 70 to 270,000. And so, in a city as wonderful as ours is, those those guys who are putting together the orders, the volunteers, the staff, the drivers, they collectively are sending out four times the amount of food that we used to send out.

And, they're doing it with excellence and often with a smile. Because I think what you'd see at Daily Bread is volunteers and staff who, are aligned on a mission, who subscribe to the values of, of Daily Bread, who want to make sure that we rid this city of poverty and of food insecurity and are gonna do everything that we can to do that and take that mission very seriously, but never ourselves. So it's a, a great place to work, to volunteer, to advocate, and to be a part of.

 

Pat Perdue (06:28):

Thank you for that. And thanks to you and all the work that the people that you referenced are doing every day. You referenced doing it with a smile with such a Herculean task, you know, that seems to never have an end. How important is that smile and how hard is that part to maintain?

 

Neil Heatherington (06:47):

I, I think it's absolutely critical. You know, if you look at, people in particular in essential services of which the food bank is one; during the pandemic and the burnout that happened, the enormous burden that people had, whether it was in hours or job performance or just the weightiness of, we gotta get this done. If we don't do this, if we shut down, if Covid, you know, took over the Daily Bread food bank and we weren't able to make our deliveries, we're talking about now 55,000 client visits a week that would not get the food that they, that they need. And so there's an enormous burden. And so, so you got that pressure. And so how do you as a leadership team make sure that people can do that with a sense of inspiration with the tools and autonomy that they need so that they can have a smile?

And that might mean that we are putting up the,the Spotify a little louder on our production floor or, dancing and shuffling to beat a little bit. And when it comes to the work that we are doing; because this is a movement, you know, when you think about Daily Bread and the work that we're doing, it's about getting the food out now. But it's a movement around bringing people together with common cause and purpose so that, so that we can affect change. And so there is that mission imperative, that, that we're all behind. And so you can't help but smile in spite of a horrific situation.

 

Pat Perdue (08:23):

Makes sense. And there's so much of what you just said that I'd love to unpack. One of the things you referenced is the, the dramatic increase in the need for Daily Bread Food Banks services. Do you know what, you're delivering a lot more food. Is there a challenge in getting that food to deliver? Like, do you have enough or what can we do? And I'm also thinking of me and our listeners, what can we do to make that easier for you?

 

Neil Heatherington (08:49):

The short answer is no, we don't have enough. During the Pandemic, community was incredibly generous, and we set aside a pandemic fund and we said, actually the highest usage of Foodbank is gonna come two, three years after the start of the pandemic. And and our board of directors was smart, and they were right on that front. And so we set aside funds to be able to deal with today. What we were wrong about was just how dramatic the need would be. So before the pandemic, I mentioned, you know, we saw 65, 70,000 clients per month. When the pandemic hit that went up to 120,000 When inflation hit that 120,000 popped up another 150,000 people. And so the need has been outpacing donations, the growth in, in client visits. We don't get government money. You know, one of the things a lot of people think the food bank, oh, that must be supported by the government.

It's not. 

It's a hundred percent supported by people like you, by the students of Seneca, by people coming together to do food rallies, fundraising rallies. And I think most importantly, I hope one of the things that people get out of this podcast is if you really wanna solve food insecurity, it's not about dropping off food to the food bank, which we need. It's about sending a letter to an elected official and saying, today is the day to implement your poverty reduction strategy. That will be the most effective. We will be able to be, in a much more sustainable position if we move from that 270,000 to the 70,000. And who cares about Daily Bread being a sustainable position. It's about living out our values of a right to food for the actual client or the person that is in need of,  or that is in food insecure situation.

 

Pat Perdue (10:36):

And I love the fact that you touched on how we can reach out to our politicians, our elected representatives, and maybe impact some policies so that as much as we love the work that Daily Bread Food Bank is doing, we would love for you to do less of it. Yeah. And, and so, okay, so, and I had to google this <laugh>, if I'm gonna find myself bumping into Jennifer McKelvey, Toronto's current mayor, and I have five minutes, what's something I would want to talk to her about with regards to food insecurity?

 

Neil Heatherington (11:07):

Well, I think we would want to talk about the root causes of food insecurity and those root causes. Some of them are mostly at the provincial level, but at a city level, we would be talking about how can you, as mayor, further the policies that are driving decent, affordable housing being built. So not only being built, increasing the supply, we we need more intensification, we need more low income housing, whether that be TCH housing or, rent supplements for housing. I would say the city has punched above its weight when it comes to investments in housing because they don't have a lot of tools to be able to do it. But they are setting aside land, they're setting aside funds, they're setting aside employees to be able to work on that file. And that is the most critical file that the city, controls. Now, the other thing I would ask her to do is to join us in writing a letter to, to different levels of government and giving them opportunities to change the situation that we're in.

 

Pat Perdue (12:09):

What are some specific things that we can ask for that would be most impactful?

 

Neil Heatherington (12:14):

Well, that 'Dear Doug Letter' would say something along the lines of, today is the day to change the rates of people's income security. So let's talk about disability for a second.

So I got a friend named Bobby. Bobby has been on disability for a while. He's got multiple health issues, and he's unable to work full-time, although he does volunteer and he's an incredible contributor to community. Bobby receives from the government $1,229 a month, and he's expected to survive on that. The poverty line in Toronto is $2,100, 21-$2200. So every single month, he is underwater by about $900. So what we have done in the province is mandated that if you cannot derive your income from employment, you must live in poverty for the rest of your life. And that's, that's obscene when you think about it. But that is the simple headline message.

And so my letter to Premier Ford would be requesting that he seriously consider the rates of disability. There has been an increase of 5% that happened this past October, but that was the first increase that happened since 2018. Now, think about all the things Pat, that have changed in pricing since 2018. 5% is so far behind the cost of living. And so we do need to make a significant catch up alteration to, to, to the rates of disability. That would be the number one thing that I would say to the province.

 

Pat Perdue (13:46):

Got it. And let's say we had the same opportunity to, to send a letter, or if I was, if I find myself, if I get on, you know, the Queen's streetcar, and I'm looking across the aisle and I see Justin Trudeau sitting there, so I've got him for 20 minutes, what's a conversation that I would like to have?

 

Neil Heatherington (14:01):

Well, the, the Prime Minister brought through a policy, a a number of, of policies and strategies to increase affordable housing. We now have a national housing strategy, and I would sit right beside him on that streetcar, and I would say ah, how's your progress to that? I know the answer. The answer is we're not making the progress that we thought we would. And more importantly, we were gonna cut poverty by 50% by 2030, and that in our poverty reduction strategy. And I would encourage him to see the benefits of both of those strategies. When you have decent, affordable housing, it means that there's workforce housing. It means that it's good for the economy. You know, they brought in $10 a day daycare, not because it is, it's a good vote getter, but because it's strong for the economy. It means more people are able to go back into, into the, the workforce more quickly. There is tangible benefits to poverty reduction strategies, that in addition to the, the values-based benefit, we get to live out a more just society as his father articulated decades ago. And so we have the opportunity to double down on the, national housing strategy and double down on success towards Project 2030. It's only seven years away, and we're not cutting poverty in half, and we still have the opportunity to enforce, correct?

 

Pat Perdue (15:33):

Thank you for that. Talking about food insecurity, often we think, oh, it's, it's somebody who's not like me. And I think that might be a little bit of a misperception. Who are you finding are your clients these days?

 

Neil Heatherington (15:46):

Oh Pat, that's a great question. You know, the, it's never gonna happen to me is happening to 5.8 million Canadians. 5.8 million Canadians are food insecure. The highest and the fastest growing segment of individuals who are who are food insecure, are individuals who have full-time employment or full-time hours. Usually it's cobbled, you know, two or three jobs cobbled together. They are the ones that are unable to make thing and make a go of it. And that is because of the high cost of housing. It's also because they're making really difficult choices. So if you think about it, okay, you got a job at Tim Hortons, you're working 15 hours there, you're working 15 hours at McDonald's, you have no benefits. So now your child is sick, you're, you're, you're making too much income to receive any benefits for that prescription. But, so you've got, you hit this welfare wall where you're, you're unable to, to get benefits, but you're working full-time and you can't afford it.

And so you're making choices between prescriptions or rent, between hydro and food, and there, therefore, you have to rely on what has been there for 40 years, which is food charity through the food bank. And so we are forcing Canadians into very difficult positions. And when we think about some national social policies, the good that can come out of that from a mental health perspective and a stress perspective. Take for example, healthcare. I have never lost a night's sleep thinking I will go bankrupt because of a healthcare bill, and it's allowed me to focus on my occupation, on my job, on my vocation. Whereas our friends to the South, you can't, I mean, it's just the number that are up at night that are thinking, what if I do have a heart attack? Can I afford that bill? We don't have that. And so can't we extend that safety net into other areas so that we can focus on building up the economy and building one another up?

 

Pat Perdue (17:52):

And you mentioned the amount of Canadians, the percentage of Canadians that are experiencing food insecurity. Obviously this isn't just a Toronto problem, this is a national problem. To what extent does the, or can the Daily Bread Food bank liaise with other similar organizations in other cities around North America to perhaps compare best practices or to align on policy influence or anything that might make a difference?

 

Neil Heatherington (18:23):

Yeah, and and we certainly do that. You know, we look to the south in terms of what we can do and what we, ought to stay away from. In, in the United States, they have, you know, what's commonly referred to as food stamps. We don't have that in Canada. We think that there should be a decent income for people to make the choices they want on the food that they'd like to purchase, but we're not doing the decent income side of things. I spent a lot of my time with my peers across the country on zoom calls where I'm listening to and learning from, great leaders in cities across the country who are not only delivering great food to individuals that need it through their food bank, but also coming up with novel ideas when it comes to how we can advocate better for people's right to food to be realized.

 

Pat Perdue (19:10):

Is there a top five list? Like what are the thinking out of the box solutions that are gaining some traction in these conversations if you, if you're at liberty to share?

 

Neil Heatherington (19:20):

Yeah, there's certainly, there's always the operational ones. And so how can you, you do more, better, more efficiently, more transparently with good governance? But you know what, I'm not sure your, your listeners are, are gonna be interested in how we can reduce the number of forklift movements in a warehouse. But I think that there's more and better ideas when it comes to how we can, can tackle systemic change. And so honing in on those three areas that we've, we've alluded to through the conversation about how do you raise the awareness of the need for decent affordable housing? And so that, that means like, how do you partner with local housing agencies? How do you advocate with them with say, community groups, grassroots organizations? And so we spend a lot of time in building coalition. How can you make sure that you talk with your provincial counterparts and make sure that there are decent incomes when it comes to social assistance and what is working, what's not working?

I'll tell you that one of the things that is keeping me up at night right now is on the advocacy front, is we have been laying out what is happening very clearly. We've laid out clear policy recommendations, and we've taken it a step further where we've analyzed what would those policy levers do to drive down food bank usage. So we've done all three things the way that a textbook would, would tell us that that should successfully change government policies, but it hasn't. And so there's a lot of conversation about should there ever be a day where, where we as a food bank say no more. We're gonna, guys on Monday, until the city or the province or the federal government implement a specific social policy, we're not gonna serve the food. We're not gonna deliver the 130,000 meals that we deliver every single day. We're gonna stop that until they make a change and essentially do a food bank general strike. And that's a really weighty conversation that we're having. It sort of was done in Hamilton a few decades ago by some volunteers that that had had enough of this. But are we using those who are most vulnerable as, as pawns to be able to, to get a policy initiative through? There's some really, really tough ethical questions in, in that type of conversation. But I will tell you, we need to do something even more bold.

 

Pat Perdue (21:48):

It almost suggests that organizations like the Daily Bread Food Bank are inadvertently subsidizing bad policies.

 

Neil Heatherington (21:56):

Yeah, that's a, that's a criticism that's been out there. It's a criticism that's, that's never been substantiated through fact. We don't have a scientific case study that says, if you don't have a food bank, you will have lower poverty rates. It's a criticism that has been leveled. I think that is largely unfounded. I think that a criticism of food banks has been that, you know, we see ourselves as the solution that food banks, that food charity is a solution. And we've never, ever said that we're a solution. But I think that some people think that we believe that. And instead what we've said is we're gonna feed the need now and we're gonna advocate ferociously to be able to change the systems. And it's because we feed the need now, it's because we interact with the faces with, it's because we interact with the people on a daily basis, like my friend Bobby, that we are able to tell the stories, tell the statistics, and with authentic evidence behind us, be able to hopefully drive change.

 

Pat Perdue (23:02):

And for those who are listening to this podcast, what's something they can do? We talked about writing letters, but they wanna make a difference today.

 

Neil Heatherington (23:10):

Yeah, I, there's, there's so much that you can do. The easiest thing to do is to send an email to any elected official. All three levels of government have poverty reduction strategies. Just send a note to a random politician and say, "I think you should implement your poverty reduction strategy, lots of love, Seneca grad." And just send that note, that makes a difference. Send a note just to any random elected official, they all have a poverty reduction strategy. Everybody can do that. Everybody can, can do that one thing. But if you want to get a little bit dive into it a little bit more, here's a few things that you can do. You can learn more. We have a podcast called The 2030 Project, which dives into all this social policy stuff that we've sort of touched upon today. You can learn more through through that.

You can raise food and raise funds. You'd love it. If anybody dropped off any food that they would enjoy eating, drop it off to any fire hall and we will pick it up. We will sort it, we will distribute it to people that are experiencing food insecurity. You can donate funds, you can do that as a, as an event. You can, have a bringing together your Seneca alumni friends, you're having a class reunion. Think about making Daily Bread the charity of choice on that front, you can come and volunteer. You can sort food, you know, I, I mentioned the atmosphere at Daily Bread and what a great place it is to work. That's not just for staff, that's also for unpaid staff. Those volunteers who give their time every single day. We'd love it if Seneca and everybody who's listening to this said, yeah, I want to give, I wanna give back today.

 

Pat Perdue (24:44):

That's great. Thank you for that. And very clear action items that you've listed. And I almost think maybe even a gathering together a fundraiser and a and an email writing event.

 

Neil Heatherington (24:56):

Absolutely. No, and, and, and, and it can be that simple, you know, get together at a pub, talk about food insecurity and then everybody send a note to an elected official. I mean, that type of conversation's important and will drive change. I,I firmly believe that.

 

Pat Perdue (25:11):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there's so much more I would love to talk to you about around Daily Bread Food Bank and food insecurity in Toronto. I do want to touch on your story, though. You're a Senecan, which is amazing. Can you share with us a little bit about your time at Seneca College?

 

Neil Heatherington (25:25):

Yeah, I'm a very proud Seneca Alumnus. Seneca. I, I went to Seneca after the University of Western Ontario. And I had summer jobs. And, and the summer job that I had was essentially in construction. I was doing little renovations, started off with window cleaning, then painting, and then suddenly we're doing renovations and roofing. And we had no clue what we were doing, but we knew that we enjoyed it. We, we literally would do these summer jobs, or we'd go to the library and rent Bob Vila VHS cassettes and and watch how to do, how to do a roof. We'd watch the video and then the next day try to, to do it. And Seneca was where I was able to take what I was passionate about, which is construction, and actually learn how to do it. And I we had a wonderful program director.

His name was John Owens, or his name is John Owens. And he put up with me in, in class. And over the course of my tenure, at Seneca, was able to get a certificate in building construction and regulations, which led me to a job at Tridel Construction, a great condominium builder in, in Toronto. But even better, it was when I was 25, that the ultimate construction job came up, and that was to be the CEO of Habitat for Humanity. And a great man that I missed very much, Nick Volk, was the board chair, and he hired me as CEO even though I was 25 and had no idea what I was doing. So that was the trajectory, and it all started from from a classroom at Seneca.

 

Pat Perdue (27:04):

Amazing. And for those who are listening who find themselves maybe seeing a future like the one that you've described where they're talented, they have ability, and they would love to channel that ability or focus, that ability to making a difference, what thoughts might you have for them? Or what words of advice or inspiration might you have for them?

 

Neil Heatherington (27:27):

Well, I would say the first thing is be open. You know, when, when I was in high school, I made a... in university, I had a clear plan that I was going to, you know, be some sort of in some sort of business and I would be rich. That was my plan. But there, there's a saying, if you want to make God laugh, you let God know your plans and just being open, for whatever comes your way. I wasn't planning on working in the nonprofit sector growing up, but I have found more joy than you could possibly imagine working for a mission, rather than money. And so I would cons, I I would really encourage Senecans to think about things like the nonprofit program that are at Seneca, where you can learn about how you can contribute to charities across the country.

There's 89,000 charities. So wherever you're passionate about, you can probably make a difference and be inspired daily by being in the nonprofit sector. So be open and be open to the charitable sector. You know, one of the things that I do is I, I have to ask people for money. So that's one of the things you do as CEO of a of a, of a charity. And when I meet with a Fancy Pants person, I will often ask them, what made you so successful? And I only get one of two answers. The first answer is, I saw an opportunity, I worked my ass off and I seized the day, and I, I was incredibly successful. So that's one bucket of answer. The other bucket is somebody says, I was around great people and I was just lucky.

The first guy will give me no money. The second guy will always give me money. You gotta figure out which bucket do you wanna be in; do you wanna be in the bucket where you were around great people, around a great mission, around great people like my mentor Nick Volk, who took a chance on me and hired me at Habitat for Humanity and changed the trajectory of my life. So hanging around with some, some great people and never ever thinking that your success was just because of you. In fact, it was because of the community. It was because the people around you, the relationships around you, and the great country that we live in.

 

Pat Perdue (29:48):

Thank you, Neil. I can't think of a better spot to end our conversation, which really could go on for hours and hours than that very inspirational story. As you think of your future or the future for a Daily Bread food bank, what comes to mind?

 

Neil Heatherington (30:03):

Well, we're in a very difficult position at, at Daily Bread now, in terms of the growing need. And so my fervent hope is that that need begins to decline because we as a society came together and, we put on pause that whole build back better. And my hope is that we reignite that and do build back better so that nobody needs the Daily Bread Food Bank so that nobody needs to,to earn to food charity, so that we can all thrive in community. And so I'd like to be part of that change in whatever capacity I'm best suited for, whether that's at Daily Bread or, or somewhere else. But for now, my heart is in service to community through through the nonprofit sector.

 

Pat Perdue (30:56):

Well Neil, thank you so much for your time today and all the work you do and your fabulous team at Daily Bread Food Bank. Obviously, you are impacting the lives of a lot of people in this great city that we love. So thank you for all of that. And thank you for taking some time out to join the Seneca Proud Podcast today.

 

Neil Heatherington (31:18):

Thanks so much Pat, and thank you for thanking the team. They're a great group of individuals.

 

Pat Perdue (31:22):

Absolutely. Bye.

 

Neil Heatherington (31:24):

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

 

Pat Perdue (31:27):

And that was my conversation with Seneca grad and CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank, Neil Heatherington. So my question to you, you're on the bus, say the 24 express headed southbound to Victoria Park Station, and you're kind of zoning out, listening to something on your earbuds, and you look up and you happen to notice that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sitting across from you. What would you ask?

For our guest Neil, ending poverty and food insecurity is definitely the thing. That might be the thing for you as well, or it might be something different. I think the trick is to know what you would talk about. And then in lieu of that random meeting on the bus, you can do something different, like send an email. I also want to touch on Neil's advice for the leaders out there to be open to what life puts in front of you. Which may include the idea of working for a mission rather than money. And with 89,000 charities across Canada, there's lots of ways to help. I'd like to thank Neil Heatherington for joining us today. And as always, I'd like to thank you for listening. This has been the Seneca Proud Podcast. I'm Pat Perdue. Stay proud, Seneca.