East Scarborough Storefront has been on MakeWay’s Shared Platform for nearly 20 years, making it one of the longest running projects we’ve worked with. Since 2001, they’ve used the power of collaboration to support people and build community in the diverse, suburban neighbourhoods of East Scarborough. We sat down with Storefront Director, Sahar Vermezyari, and Community Wide Strategies Manager, Maddy Macnab, to hear the story of how this dynamic organization came to be, what exciting things they’re working on and what’s on the horizon for the project.
People in marginalized communities like East Scarborough are often disconnected from resources like employment, legal services, or mental health support. That is the problem East Scarborough Storefront set out to solve almost 20 years ago. The Storefront is based in Toronto and specifically serves the Kingston-Galloway-Orton Park Neighborhood in East Scarborough (though their catchment areas shrink and grow, depending on what they’re working on).
Scarborough (and by extension, East Scarborough) is often devalued and neglected due to racism and classism: almost 75% of residents are racialized and around 30% live at or below the poverty line. An example of this neglect is poorly maintained public transit. “I think people who haven’t lived in Scarborough don’t understand how long it takes and how difficult it is from one end to the other. Even if we say there are resources in Scarborough – for someone in East Scarborough to get to [West Scarborough or close to Central Toronto] is a trek,” said Sahar. That’s partly why having a resource hub located near East Scarborough residents is so crucial.
In response to these factors, the Storefront currently operates a hub where over 30 organizations can come into community and make use of the Storefronts infrastructure to provide services and resources. A huge part of the project’s purpose is to engage in work that centers community and grassroots work already being done. As Maddy put it: “We are not trying to be the be all and end all for Scarborough residents. We’re trying to facilitate a network that involves all the strength and assets in the community, not just the Storefront. The strengths and assets of the residents themselves and other service providers, local institutions, people who want to get involved in positive change in the neighborhood.”
Like many organizations, the project was deeply impacted by and forced to quickly adjust to the pandemic. Not only did they have to shift to virtual programming, they also had to safely maintain some in-person services.
They only recently started shifting more activities and events in-person again. This past Spring, they hosted the East Scarborough Works Symposium, a hybrid event that brought job seekers, employment trainers, union representatives and other community members together to recommit to making positive change in local employment and to ensure that people in East Scarborough are first in line to for local jobs. Keeping true to their mission of centering residents, project staff worked to ensure local job seekers were brought in as leaders in improving employment opportunities in the neighbourhood. “Residents’ voices were heard at the top of the event. They were heard in the front of the room with a microphone. All of those things were really intentional,” Sahar reflected.
We asked Sahar and Maddy what exciting things are coming up for the Storefront. “I guess there’s always something in the works that’s exciting,” Sahar replied, “One of the pieces that I want to highlight is our work around addressing anti-Black racism. Equity has always been a part of our approach. But we’re now explicitly having conversations on how we address anti-Black racism. We developed an equity committee made-up of residents and partners and storefront staff who are working on developing an equity framework that will really speak to our commitments to anti-racism, as well as having an accountability framework. We’re looking at what do we need to do, how do we need to change, what do we need to learn.”
Want to support East Scarborough Storefront and their mission? You can follow them on social media (they’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and also learn more about getting involved through volunteering, donating, connecting their clients to jobs in your network and more!
Many community-led initiatives struggle to manage the administrative demands of a registered charity while driving impact. And so, MakeWay launched the shared platform model in Canada. MakeWay’s shared platform is home to some of the most innovative social change projects in Canada, building solutions to a range of complex environmental and social challenges.
